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SALT LAKE CITY — The state of Utah has an impressive college basketball tradition.
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Utah won a national championship in 1944 (NIT National Title in 1947) and has reached the Final Four four times.
BYU has reached the NCAA Tournament 27 times (two NIT titles in 1951, 1966). Dave Rose has led the Cougars to six straight NCAA Tournament appearances which is tied with Utah for the longest such streak in state history.
Utah State has 20+ wins in 13 consecutive seasons. The Aggies have one of the top winning percentages in college basketball since Stew Morrill took over the program in 1999.
Weber State has 20 Big Sky titles and pulled off two of the biggest upsets in NCAA Tournament history in 1995 and 1999.
It's reached the point where you just assume one or more of these teams will go dancing in March. In fact, college basketball in Utah has been so good that the last time the state was not represented in the NCAA Tournament was 1994. That's 18 straight years at least one in-state team has been invited to the Big Dance. In 12 of those 18 seasons more than one team has reached the NCAA Tournament.
It looks like that streak may be coming to an end.
BYU is having another good season but it may not be enough to get the Cougars in. They don't have that big win this season on their tournament resume. They are 0-6 against the teams in the top 75 in RPI. Their best win this season based on RPI is at Santa Clara (No. 94). The humbling defeat at Gonzaga Thursday night showed that they may have to win the WCC Tournament to keep their tourney streak alive.
Tournament expectations were somewhere between low and no chance for Utah at the beginning of the season. The Utes did have opportunities to breakthrough with big wins in conference but kept coming up short. The exception was the win at Washington, their first road win in the Pac-12, but the jury is still out on just how good Washington is. The Utes realistic goal may be a .500 season which would be a great step for Coach Krystkowiak and his program.
Hopes were high for Utah State in their final season in the WAC. They were picked to finish first in both preseason WAC polls. They looked like the favorite 15 games into the season with a 14-1 record. Then came a disastrous trip to New Mexico State. The Aggies left Las Cruces with not only a heartbreaking defeat but two devastating injuries. Kysiean Reed will miss the rest of the season with a torn ACL and Preston Medlin is out 6-8 weeks with a broken wrist. They already lost Danny Berger and two other players that left the program. The Aggies have now lost three straight games including a home loss to Texas-Arlington. They can now only hope that Medlin returns in time for the WAC Tournament and they can make a run in Las Vegas.
Weber State is also having a great season and may have the best shot of all the teams in-state but the Big Sky is a one-big league. The only way to the NCAA Tournament is winning the Big Sky tournament and unless they can win the regular season title over Montana and others it will be very difficult to go to a place like Missoula again and win the conference tourney.
Southern Utah, like Weber State, would need to win the Big Sky Tournament to reach the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2001, their only NCAA Tournament appearance.
There is still time for BYU to add wins over Gonzaga and St. Mary's to boost there at-large resume. And, of course, anything is possible in March and each team will get a chance to earn an automatic bid by winning their conference tournament.
Reality, though, points to that 18-year streak coming to an end in 2013. If that happens it has been an impressive run.
It was a streak that featured Utah's run to the 1998 NCAA Championship game. There was Harold "The Show" Arcenaux and the Weber State Wildcats stunning North Carolina and pushing Florida to overtime in 1999. There was 12th seeded Utah State stunning 5th seeded Ohio State in 2001. Utah enjoyed another Sweet 16 appearance in 2005 led by Andrew Bogut who would win the Naismith and Wooden Awards and become the No. 1 overall pick in the 2005 NBA Draft. Then came BYU's current run of six straight tourney appearances. It's a run that featured "Jimmer Mania" in 2011 and the Cougars first Sweet 16 appearance since 1981. Jimmer Fredette would sweep player of the year honors that season and become an NBA lottery pick.
Reaching the NCAA tournament is not easy. The fact that college basketball fans in Utah expect their teams to reach the tournament each year says a lot about how good we've had it for the last 18 years.
Unfortunately those great memories may be the only thing fans of these teams have to hold on to during March Madness.
