Colorado St. 60, No. 12 Utah 52

3/12/2008 9:01 PM

By ARNIE STAPLETON
AP Sports Writer

LAS VEGAS (AP) -The 12th-ranked Utah Utes would like to invoke the old Las Vegas tourism slogan ``What happens here stays here.''

They were shocked 60-52 by Colorado State on Wednesday night in the quarterfinals of the Mountain West Conference tournament, a 27-3 team losing to a 3-27 team.

``Rather it be now than the first round of the NCAAs when you know you're done for good,'' Utes forward Morgan Warburton said. ``Maybe this is just a little bit of a wake-up call for us.''

The Utes had gone 16-0 in league play and had won 22 straight.

Emily Neal scored 17 points and the ninth-seeded Rams (4-28) outmuscled and outhustled the heavily favored Utes (28-4), who shot 29 percent and were bruised and battered on the boards.

Colorado State was winless in conference play (0-16) and entered the tourney on a 20-game losing streak before beating UNLV in the play-in game Tuesday night, a prelude to one of the biggest upsets in college basketball this season.

All night, it was hard to tell which team had won 27 games and which had lost 27.

``Because that's how they practice,'' Rams coach Jen Warden said of her players' inspired performance.

Neal's two free throws with 4:40 remaining gave the Rams their biggest lead at 50-43, and Sara Hunter (12 points) sank a pair of foul shots with 1:59 left to extend the advantage to 53-45.

Her free throws came after she grabbed her own rebound following a prayer she fired up early in the shot clock, a move that would have left most coaches cringing.

Not Warden.

``From the outset, you are right, it looks like kind of an emotional release, kind of a do-or-die deal where we should be more patient with the shot clock,'' she said. ``But I think the statement that it made was powerful to our team: that we are not going to sit on a six-point lead and go, 'Oh, my gosh, I can't believe we're up six points, nobody else shoot the ball.'''

When did they realize they could actually pull off their first upset of a ranked team in seven seasons?

``I think from tip-off,'' Hunter said. ``We didn't have anything to lose really.''

Amaka Uzomah pulled down 15 rebounds for the Rams, who will face New Mexico in the semifinals Friday at the Thomas & Mack Center.

Leilani Mitchell led Utah with 19 points and Kalee Whipple and Warburton each had 11, but they were a combined 13-for-48 from the field.

``It's the first time all year that all three of our scorers struggled on the same night,'' Elliott said. ``And we just feel like, you know, that's more of a statement about how good we've been, not how bad we were tonight.''