Early endings sully local hoops seasons

Wham, bam, see ya later, man.

That, unfortunately, summed up the showing by the state of Utah's three representatives in this year's NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament.

A glorious regular season, and a postseason which seemingly held so much promise, ended abruptly with last week's disappointing one-and-done performances by BYU, Utah and Utah State.

Whether they were too uptight or a little intimidated to be on the national stage, they all followed the same frustrating script: Fall far behind early, then fight like crazy to play catch-up.

The Aggies were the only ones that actually did so sufficiently well to have a chance to win in the closing minutes.

For the second straight year, BYU got bounced by Texas A&M. For those of you keeping score at home — and we know how much you Utah fans love to point this out — that's seven consecutive first-round exits by the Cougars over the past 15 years.

Hey, BYU fans, say what you want about Roger Reid, but at least his teams were able to win a couple of games in the Big Dance during his coaching days in Provo. And they haven't won one since he left.

Utah, which proudly charged into the tourney with a No. 5 seed, was ousted by an Arizona team which, well …

OK, by a show of hands, how many of you scoffed when the Wildcats showed up on this year's bracket a week ago, saying something along the lines of "Geez, they don't even belong in the tournament."

Yeah, me too. Boy, were we wrong.

Arizona, seeded 12th, got off to a strong start in Friday's game, weathered a comeback by the Utes and wound up with a double-digit win.

And Utah State, seeded the lowest among the Beehive State's three NCAA amigos, dropped a one-point heartbreaker to Marquette.

Even though the Aggies, a No. 11 seed, probably weren't supposed to win, it was difficult to see them drop Friday's hard-fought decision after they rallied from a double-digit deficit to take a six-point lead with less than five minutes left, only to fade down the stretch.

With Weber State's first-round loss to San Diego State in the NIT, the in-state schools' postseason performance was about as enjoyable as a root canal — without any pain-killer.

In fact, the only men's basketball teams from Utah to enjoy any degree of national tournament success at all were a couple of programs we seldom talk about at all — Salt Lake Community College and Westminster,

All SLCC did was win the national junior college championship. And Westminster reached the quarterfinals of the NAIA national tourney.

Guess we'll have to hang our hat on those strong showings.

Of course, one of the most popular questions you've heard the past couple of days, and will continue to hear over the next two weeks, is, "Hey, how's your bracket lookin'?"

Well, after picking Utah, BYU and Utah State to win their first-round NCAA games, you might as well ask how my 401K is doing.

Yeah, not so hot these days.

Throw in upset losses by Wake Forest, Florida State, West Virginia and Illinois, and my bracket's got more red ink on it than a sleepy sophomore's mid-term algebra exam.

Sure, March Madness will go on into early April. But for Utah's "Big Three" teams, it was over way too soon.

And, sadly, all those great regular-season victories and conference tournament triumphs will soon become a fond but distant memory.

E-MAIL: rhollis@desnews.com