Utah Utes basketball: Utes roll past 'Pokes, reach final

LAS VEGAS — It will be an all Utah-San Diego State Saturday after Utah defeated Wyoming 68-55 Friday night in the semifinals of the Mountain West Conference Tournament at the Thomas & Mack Center.

After the Ute women play San Diego State in the first title game today, the Ute men will face the Aztecs, a 64-62 winner over BYU, at 5 p.m MDT (Versus TV). The winner will receive the MWC's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.

Luke Nevill had a monster game for the Utes, scoring 23 points and pulling down 15 rebounds. Carlon Brown had one of his better games of late with 13 points, five rebounds and three steals.

"The guys made the plays and did a good job of finding me tonight," said Nevill. "I'm excited to play in the championship."

The Utes outshot the Cowboys 44.6 percent to 34 percent and shared the ball especially well, getting 17 assists to just three for the Cowboys. Luka Drca led the way with eight assists to go with his nine points.

"I thought our defense was awesome tonight," said Utah coach Jim Boylen. "The difference in the game was our defense, but we shared the ball well and we have a good basketball team when we do that."

Wyoming got 13 points from Brandon Ewing and 12 from Sean Ogirri.

After watching two double-digit leads melt in the first half, the Utes came out strong in the second half and pushed the lead back to 13 at 46-33 with 15:17 left.

Shaun Green made his first basket of the game with a 3-pointer from the left angle, and Brown, Nevill and Lawrence Borha followed with baskets.

When Kim Tillie fouled out for the second straight night with 13:30 left and Green went to the bench a couple of minutes later, it was nervous time for the Utes as Wyoming went on a 10-2 run to cut the lead to 48-43 with 12:05 left.

That's when Nevill reappeared after scoring 10 points in the first six minutes of the game. He made consecutive hook shots and added a free throw to push the lead back to 10 at 53-43.

Then Drca, who was 0-for-4 at the time, swished a 3-pointer from the top of the key to give the Utes some breathing room at 56-45. Nevill then scored five straight points and, when Green hit another 3-pointer, it was 64-51 for Utah.

The Utes led throughout the first half and took a 35-29 lead into the locker room.