Top seed Utah wants to keep momentum

Steve Addy

Thursday, March 8, 2001 | 10:43 a.m.

The Mountain West had two sorts of interim coaches this season -- the kind with the title and the kind without.

Max Good tried it without the title, hoping the perception of greater authority would help him rescue UNLV from the turmoil of NCAA sanctions and Bill Bayno's dismissal.

The setup had possibilities, but the Rick Pitino rumors quickly deflated Good's power. Those Rebels who chose to tune him out did so with relative impunity.

For a while, it looked like Utah's Dick Hunsaker would do no better with the interim label. At the end of January, the Utes were 11-9 with Hunsaker filling in for ailing coach Rick Majerus.

They had lost three straight, leaving them 3-3 in the MWC and threatening their streak of six outright or shared conference championships.

Five weeks later, as if fated, Utah is back on top. After rallying to grab a share of the regular season title with BYU and Wyoming, Hunsaker was named MWC coach of the year and the Utes are seeded first in the conference tournament starting today at the Thomas & Mack Center.

But Utah doesn't have to start until Friday. Because of UNLV's absence due to its postseason ban, the No. 1 seed received a bye into the second round, so the Utes must wait until 9 p.m. Friday to meet the winner of tonight's New Mexico-Colorado State game.

Hunsaker's team won't be sitting around all day watching hoops. They'll get in one last practice while the other six participants are playing the first round.

But the interim boss isn't sure if the extra day is a benefit or hindrance.

"I think the sword cuts both ways," Hunsaker said. "In this case, Colorado State and New Mexico are coming off losses, so whoever wins that game will have a good jump-start and be feeling good about themselves going into the second round.

"By the same token, it's positive that we have additional days of rest and won't be playing back-to-back like they are, so we can come in with fresh legs and excitement. I just hope we won't have early jitters."

However, the Utes (19-10) are clearly entering as the hottest team, despite their hiccup last week at Air Force, where they suffered a 71-60 loss.

That stopped their seven-game winning streak, which included a nonconference victory over Louisville, but Utah finished strong with a 66-61 win at New Mexico. Paired with UNLV's win over Wyoming, it forged a tri-championship and gave Utah the No. 1 seed via the tiebreaker.

Winning at The Pit set Hunsaker's mind at ease.

"We hadn't won a game like that this season," Hunsaker said. "We did the intangibles, got down in the trenches and made enough plays down the stretch to win. It gave us a good sense of confidence about the progress we've made. It was a nice sendoff for the postseason."

The Utes couldn't have imagined such a finish after some of their early missteps. They went 3-5 in December, including three losses to in-state schools: Utah State, Weber State and Southern Utah. The Weber State loss on Dec. 9 ended their 54-game home winning streak.

Then Utah got off to a good start in the MWC, winning three at home, but lost three straight on the road against Wyoming, Colorado State and BYU.

But with reserve guard Kevin Bradley leading the way, the Utes finally began piling up wins, one by one. Bradley, who nearly quit in January after a dispute with Hunsaker, averaged 13.4 points in the final eight MWC games, in which the Utes went 7-1.