Saturday, March 8, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
Van Horn made sure of that himself Saturday night, scoring 18 of his 37 points in the first half as the third-ranked Utes beat Texas Christian 89-68 in the Western Athletic Conference championship game.
Van Horn, Utah's 6-foot-10 All-America candidate, also had 15 rebounds as the Utes (26-3) took a 12-point halftime lead and coasted in the second half.
"I'm really in awe right now," Van Horn said. "We nearly weren't here but for two lucky shots. Offensively I felt into it. Defensively, I latched on as the helper a lot."
Van Horn, who won Utah's first two tournament games with last-ditch, buzzer-beating shots, dominated against TCU (21-12) in the last WAC game of his four-year Utah career.
"I didn't think that looked like Van Horn last night," TCU coach Billy Tubbs said of Van Horn's 10-point performance against New Mexico in the semifinals. "Tonight it looked like Van Horn. In our scheme of things, he'd average 35 points a game."
Unlike tournament games against Southern Methodist and New Mexico, which Van Horn won with miracle shots as time ran out, Van Horn wasn't even on the court when the game ended.
He was pulled with 2:35 left to a standing ovation from a crowd that chanted "Keith Van Horn, Keith Van Horn" in tribute to the three-time WAC player of the year.
"He's kind of become a living legend," Utah coach Rick Majerus said. "It's sort of like the fish that starts out 12 inches and becomes 20."
Van Horn returned a few minutes later to accept the tournament's most valuable player award, just after he and his teammates hoisted their portly coach on their shoulders to cut down the final strands of the net.
"I'm going to follow him around tonight," Majerus said. "If he tells me to bet a red seven I'm going to bet the house on it."
After going scoreless for the first nine minutes, Van Horn had nine straight points as he regained a shooting touch after being held to only 10 points in Friday night's semifinal victory over No. 14 New Mexico.
Utah might have clinched a top seed in the NCAA tournament on a day that saw No. 2 Minnesota and No. 4 South Carolina lose.
And Majerus wants his team to play in the West subregional in Tucson, Ariz.
"I'd like to go to Tucson, we deserve Tucson. I deserve Tucson," Majerus said. "They'll probably put someone down there who doesn't like Mexican food, won't go in the sun or lust after the beautiful babes. If anybody deserves Tucson it's me."
TCU, meanwhile, will have to wait to see if its three WAC tournament victories get it a longshot bid to the NCAA tournament.
"The way I understand this thing we're the runner-up in the WAC," Tubbs said. "If they're going to take more than one team from the WAC, first they would take Utah and we hope to crash the party."
Utah led 50-38 at halftime, then gradually extended the lead before a pro-Utah crowd in the first WAC tournament held in the UNLV campus arena.
Prince Fowler and Mike Jones each had 13 points for TCU. Andrew Miller had 13 for Utah, while Michael Doleac, Drew Hansen and Ben Caton had 11 apiece.
archive
