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The University of Utah Athletics
Monday, January 31
Salt Lake City
10:00 PM MT
University of Utah
82
vs
70
New Mexico
Utah Downs New Mexico, 82-70
2/1/2000 12:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Feb. 1, 2000
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - New Mexico's goal is to take Utah's place at the top of the Mountain West Conference.
"Utah is the standard we want to reach," first-year New Mexico coach Fran Fraschilla said. "The Utes win the conference almost every year and have been to the NCAA championship. We'll get there, but we're not there yet."
Alex Jensen scored a career-high 26 points and the 19th-ranked Utes defeated the Lobos 82-70 Monday night and stretched their home-court winning streak to 47.
Utah has defeated the Lobos five consecutive times and taken 13 of the last 16 contests. New Mexico has lost 11 straight at Utah by an average of 15 points.
"We were getting beat inside early in the game," Utah coach Rick Majerus said. "We battled harder in the second and made some adjustments on defense we needed to make. We finished playing our kind of basketball."
The Lobos (11-10, 3-3 MWC) stayed with the Utes for much of the game until Jeremy Killion ignited an 11-0 run with a 12-foot jumper. The Utes kept the Lobos scoreless for over four minutes and built their lead to 51-39 on Tony Harvey's layup with 12:56 to play.
New Mexico cut the lead under 10 on several occasions, but almost every time Jensen answered for Utah with a follow basket or a free throw.
"Jensen is the poster child for a complete college basketball player," Fraschilla said. "He knows how to play the game. You can tell he's learned a lot from a coach like Majerus."
Jensen made 8-of-10 shots from the field and made 8-of-11 from the line to keep Utah unbeaten at the Huntsman Center.
"At halftime, Coach was disappointed in the way we were playing," Jensen said. "We knew we had to make a better effort at both ends of the court."
Harvey scored 14 points and reserve Jeff Johnsen added 10 for the Utes, who have won 15 of their last 16, including six straight.
Lamont Long led New Mexico with 18 points, while Damion Walker added 14 and Marlon Parmer 13.
The Lobos ran isolation plays on nearly every possession and let their players try to break the Utes down 1-on-1. New Mexico did not have an assist in the second half.
"We aren't used to playing against guys that always have the green light to shoot. We never see anyone launching those shots in a Majerus practice," Harvey said.
"We have all bought into coach's way of team defense. His philosophy is the best way of playing the game and when we play good defense, our offense feeds off that."
After leading 35-32 at halftime, Utah built an eight-point lead the first 30 seconds of the second half. Gary Colbert hit a 3-pointer while R.T Guinn fouled Hanno Mottola in the lane. On the ensuing inbounds play, Jensen made a baseline jumper.
Long, averaging more than 20 points in conference games, was scoreless until a field goal in the last minute of the first half.
But Long scored five straight points and Walker made a shot in the key and New Mexico trailed 40-39 with 17:13 to play.
"We're a team in transition," said Fraschilla, who has said many times that one of the reasons the Lobos hired him was to beat Utah. "We're getting better, but we want to be where Utah is now."
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