Utah Utes basketball notebook: Team pretty good with everyone playing

SALT LAKE CITY — All basketball teams are better when they have all of their weapons and play at full strength.

The problem for the Utah basketball team is that it has only been at full strength for four of its 14 games this year and likely won't be for the next four or five games, with Kim Tillie undergoing surgery on his knee earlier this week.

In the four games this year where the Utes had all of their players for the full game, they were pretty good, going 3-1 with wins over Illinois, Michigan and UT-San Antonio and a loss in overtime to Oklahoma.

Jay Watkins has missed seven games, Jason Washburn two and David Foster one game. In another game, Washburn played sparingly after being hit in the head during pregame warmups, and Foster missed the second half of a loss to Illinois State with a sprained ankle. Also Carlon Brown has played with a sore foot all season and has missed practice time.

"This is not an excuse, we've just had a lot of variables in every practice and every game," said Utah coach Jim Boylen. "When I look at our defensive numbers and where we're at when we're full strength, it gives me hope that as we keep building this thing and making guys better, we'll have a good basketball team."

The numbers show how much better the Utes are when they have everyone available. In the four games everyone was available, the Utes outrebounded their opponents by four and held them to 35 percent shooting from the field and 27 percent from 3-point range. In the rest of the games, the Utes have been outboarded by five and allowed opponents to shoot 42 percent and 34 percent from behind the arc.

"My hope is to get our team back full strength and continue to play good basketball," Boylen said. "Until that point, we're going to keep practicing hard and get better."

GROWING PAINS: While he doesn't discount the severity of his players' injuries this year, Boylen also said, "Young players have to learn how to play through injury ... learn how to recover from injury. At this level, a lot of guys have never been hurt before. We're going through some of those growing pains with guys who have never been hurt before and have to work their way out of it."

QUOTABLE: Boylen on the team's disappointing 7-7 non-conference record: "I told my team, you don't hang a banner for your nonconference record. There's no banners hanging in this building for that, but there are for 29 championships."