Look No Farther Than Utah to Root for Locals

Don’t worry, Californians, you still have a team in the NCAA tournament.

Don’t think that just because UCLA, Stanford, Pacific (told you) and St. Mary’s didn’t make it past Saturday that there’s no local team left to cheer. My peeps, presenting SoCal’s squad: the Utah Utes. Or, as Arte Moreno would call them, the Los Angeles Utes of Utah.

Utah? But it’s in ... Utah. And with Andrew Bogut at center, aren’t they Australia’s team?

Do a quick background check. Three of the Utes’ starters are from Southern California. The leading scorer in their 67-58 victory over Oklahoma in Saturday’s second-round game is from Anaheim. That would be Justin Hawkins, who had 14 rebounds to go along with his 20 points. And Monrovia’s Bryant Markson scored 16, meaning Utah’s two Califorwards outscored Oklahoma’s entire starting frontline, 36-26.

And just because Artesia’s Tim Drisdom went scoreless, it doesn’t mean he didn’t play a role. He’s the main reason the whole SoCal contingent came to Utah in the first place.

“I didn’t get recruited by Utah,” Markson said. “I told Tim Drisdom that if he signed at Utah, I was going to sign there with him. And that’s what I did. Me and Richard Chaney,” a reserve swingman from Los Angeles.

Hawkins was considering Arizona and Marquette while he was at Mayfair High in Lakewood.

“When I looked at it, I saw that Tim, Richard and Bryant were [at Utah],” Hawkins said. “I kind of wanted to go away from home a little bit, and if you’re going to go away from home, you want to be with some guys you know.”

This can all be traced back to Andre Miller, the kid from Watts who went to Utah and led the Utes to the Final Four in 1998. He told Drisdom what to expect from coach Rick Majerus, and convinced Drisdom that Majerus would be a perfect tutor for him.

“The opportunity to play for him was one that I couldn’t pass up,” said Drisdom, who went to high school at Calvary Chapel. “I was aware that if I made the trip to Utah, then a couple of other guys were thinking about doing it also. To know that you’re coming down with guys that you love and that you trust and that you’re used to playing with and being around, that kind of did it for me.”

But it was Majerus’ abrupt departure last year and the hiring of Ray Giacoletti that has allowed the California crew to flourish.

“His biggest thing was to take the chains off some guys,” Drisdom said. “It’s affected Bryant Markson the most.”

Markson sure responded to Giacoletti’s halftime speech Saturday. A dreadful opening 20 minutes in which Utah was sloppy with the ball and Oklahoma couldn’t make a shot resulted in a 30-21 Utah lead at halftime.

Markson summed up Giacoletti’s talk as, “ ‘You go out there, we’re basically playing street ball right now. If you lose, you go home, and if you win, you go to the next round.’ And everybody just came out with confidence.”

Markson went back to his ways at Campanella Park and the Venice Beach courts.

“Ah, man, it was so fun,” Markson said. “I think that’s what got us out of our first-half slump. When Coach said that, threes went up, layups were going and we were running. It was great.”

Markson and Hawkins give the Utes some athleticism to go with their big man Bogut, and Marc Jackson, their outside shooter. It adds up to a nice little team.

Bogut has great passing skills, especially for a 7-footer. They ran the offense through him and let him find the cutting Hawkins and Markson for layups and dunks. Bogut finished with seven assists to go with his 10 points and 11 rebounds. He’s a potential top pick in the NBA draft if the sophomore leaves this season. But I’d want to see a few more tough inside buckets from a 7-footer. And it wasn’t a good sign when every Oklahoma player from beefy Kevin

Bookout to tiny point guard Drew Lavender was able to knock Bogut off-balance.

All of Oklahoma’s rough stuff couldn’t knock Bogut off of his game. Meanwhile, the Sooners missed three-pointers, they missed jumpers in the lane, they missed fastbreak layups. They shot 26% in the first half and 32% for the game.

“In a game like this, it comes down to making shots,” Oklahoma Coach Kelvin Sampson said. “Utah made theirs and we didn’t make ours.”

That’s all the game analysis you need for this one. The less said about this, the better.

Next up for the Utes -- our Utes -- is Kentucky.

So how do we know the SoCal boys haven’t forgotten their roots? Well, Drisdom was asking for CIF boys’ basketball results from a Times reporter. Then there’s this test of authenticity from Justin Hawkins: “Every time I go back to California or we go to Vegas, I’m always at In-N-Out Burger. That’s my favorite spot.”

And this should be California’s new favorite team.