Utah Utes basketball: Ticket sales slow for tonight's rivalry game

Tonight's crowd might be one of the smallest in modern history for the Utah-BYU game.

As of late Monday afternoon, Utah's director of ticket operations Zach Lassiter said he expects a crowd of between 12,000 and 13,000 for the annual rivalry game, which used to attract sellout crowds on an annual basis.

The two smallest crowds for Utah-BYU games since the Huntsman Center was opened came in 2006 and 2007, when the Utes had losing teams under coach Ray Giacoletti. In '06, when Chris Grant helped lead a 79-60 upset, just 12,213 showed up, and the following year when the Cougars broke a 12-year losing streak in Salt Lake, the official attendance was 12,244.

Last year, the Utah-BYU game attracted a crowd of 14,224. The last sellout for Utah-BYU was the crowd of 15,014 in 2005.

Lassiter said the tickets sold to BYU fans this year was "insignificant" and said the size of the crowd will depend a lot on the walk-up sales. The timing for the game hasn't helped matters.

"Tuesday night at 8 p.m. is not an ideal time for a basketball game," said Lassiter.

If there is a strong walk-up sale, it could be the best Ute crowd of the season, topping the 12,571 for the Gonzaga game on New Year's Eve.

BIG GAME: For years the Utah-BYU series has been close to even, until Utah pushed ahead thanks to dominance in the late '90s and early this century. However with four straight victories in the series, the Cougars have closed the gap to two at 124-122 for Utah.

Unlike former Ute coach Rick Majerus, who always used to say that the BYU game only counted as one game like any other, Utah coach Jim Boylen has embraced the series, calling it "huge." He said it's an even bigger deal than he realized when he came to Utah.

"Every day when I go get gas or go to the store, people ask, when are you going to beat BYU? My job is to build a program here and to get this program back to where we think it should be. Beating BYU is a big part of that. This is a big game."

LESS PREP: With most mid-week Mountain West Conference games being on Wednesday, tonight's game has sneaked up faster than usual and has given the Utes and Cougars less time to prepare for each other.

"It's hard — we do the best we can," Boylen said. "You try to save legs and try to keep your guys mentally fresh. It's been a challenge. We pride ourselves on work and doing the extra things, but we've had to back off and be as prepared mentally and physically."