OREM — By the admission of several players, coaches and staff members, the Utah Valley men’s basketball team didn’t have the best start to the 2017-18 college basketball season.

But here’s the thing about college hoops: seasons progress, teams change and players get better.

And UVU is finding its stride.

Utah Valley, under the direction of third-year head coach Mark Pope, blistered visiting Chicago State 83-58 Saturday night to improve to 3-0 in Western Athletic Conference play. The Wolverines (13-5) improved to 3-0 in WAC play with their seventh-straight victory, a streak that includes a 75-42 win over perennial WAC power CSU Bakersfield on Jan. 6.

It’s a turnaround from UVU’s start to the season, which opened with back-to-back losses at then-No. 4 Kentucky and No. 1 Duke in the “toughest 24 hours in college basketball history,” and included a humbling 85-58 loss to BYU in the UCCU Center.

But Pope seems to have found a way of righting the ship just in time for conference play.

"We were really blessed with a three-game homestead to start conference play," Pope said after the win over Chicago State. "That’s a huge advantage for us to start the WAC, and my guys took care of business in a very, very professional way. We took care of home court, and took advantage of it."

Maybe UVU can do something historic and earn a bid to its first-ever NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament.

But first, they have to get through the WAC. And before that, they had to be humbled.

The brutal non-conference schedule, which also included road losses to Big West foes Cal State Fullerton and Hawaii, was a reminder of what the Wolverines had to play for.

In short, Utah Valley — like virtually every team in low-major college basketball conferences like the WAC — is playing for the lone automatic bid via the end-of-season conference tournament, which will tip off March 8 in Las Vegas.

To earn that coveted bid, the Wolverines will need to outlast the Roadrunners, newly postseason-eligible Grand Canyon and WAC powerhouse New Mexico State at Orleans Arena.

And before they can get to that point, they will need to prove themselves worthy of the challenger tag. Utah Valley was picked to finish fourth by the league’s coaches in the WAC preseason poll, and the brutal non-conference schedule didn’t strike a ton of confidence in coaches, pundits and media around the region.

But it did do one thing, redshirt sophomore Jake Toolson said.

"We learned a lot in the non-conference, playing really good teams," said Toolson, who is in his first season of eligibility at UVU after transferring from BYU. "We’re playing really well right now, and that’s the point of non-conference: to play good teams and to learn and to make adjustments, to keep growing. That’s what we’re going to do.

"We’re going to keep getting better. It was cool to go out and play all those teams, and we learned a lot about ourselves. Now we know who we are, and if we keep doing those things, we’re going to win games."

The Wolverines were confident they could compete with the best in the conference. Now they have a chance to prove it — with upcoming road trips to upstart UT Rio Grande Valley on Thursday and a visit to New Mexico State two days later, followed by next week’s host tip of Grand Canyon.

"We’re a good team, and we’re going to be a good team; we've got good players," said former Lone Peak wing Conner Toolson, who averages 11.6 points and 3.4 rebounds per game. "But if we want to be great, then we’ve got to keep focusing on the details: keep defending and come to practice every day and try to get better. That’s what we do.

"We’re not happy with seven-straight. We want to keep going."

The Wolverines blasted the lower-tier conference foes of Chicago State and Missouri-Kansas City with hampered lineups; 7-foot center Akolda Manyang didn’t return from a toe injury until Saturday’s win over the Cougars, but he poured in 22 points, nine rebounds and six blocks in the effort.

Adding Manyang to BYU transfer center Isaac Neilson in the post is an embarrassment of riches nearly unseen in the WAC, and junior college transfer Ben Nakwaasah has given the Wolverines a scoring surge.

It’s all rounding in for a trip through the WAC, setting up for a potentially historic run come tournament time.

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Manyang, Utah Valley too much for Chicago State 83-58

Welcome back, Akolda Manyang. <br> In his first action since sustaining an ankle injury against Cal State Bakersfield on Jan. 6, Manyang scored a game-high 22 points, pulled down nine rebounds and had six blocks to help UVU dominate Chicago State 83-58 on Saturday night in the UCCU Center.

But it’s still early — and first, there’s that matter of a little road trip to the Southwestern United States.

"We’ve got to manage this travel trip; this is the hardest travel trip in the conference," Pope said. "It’s insane. It’s like ‘Planes, Trains and Automobiles,’ with taxis, cabs and the final goat-herder that takes us the last couple of miles to McAllen (at UT Rio Grande Valley). We go through three different airports to get to New Mexico State.

"It’s two great teams, and New Mexico State has proven they are the power in this conference. Rio Grande Valley has two big wins on the road, so both teams are really good, and it will be a really challenging trip."

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