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Midway through the second half Sunday night, Utah guard Delon Wright hooked a clothesline pass to Brekkott Chapman, whose layup attempt bounced off the rim. The Huntsman Center crowd moaned and Wright's shoulders sagged as he returned down the court.

Not much else went wrong for the Utes in a 77-56 rout of Washington. And even a play that Utah failed to finish properly served as another example of what this team is doing so well.

The Utes defend tenaciously at one end of the court, share the ball wonderfully at the other end and generally make themselves unbeatable at home. That explains how this program has come so far in coach Larry Krystkowiak's fourth season.

This is a winning program again, in every way. Actually, the Utes stand at exactly .500 in Krystkowiak's tenure, which is a monumental achievement. His record is 58-58, following a 6-25 initial season, and the best part is he's far from satisfied about any milestone — including his 100th victory overall, counting two seasons as Montana's coach.

Complacency is not in the Navy SEALs handbook, after all.

Krystkowiak invoked the Utes' summer training experience during the team's morning shootaround, reminding the players that they're conditioned to do tough things and keep improving. "I don't want any complacency," he said in the postgame news conference. "Then all that stuff goes out the window."

Judging by Sunday's showing, that's not about to happen. The No. 12-ranked Utes (16-3) may have wobbled slightly in the middle of the game, but they shut down the Huskies after that and were at their best during a 23-3 run that gave them a 66-41 lead. That sequence featured so many memorable plays, starting with a flurry of passes that led to Wright assisting Brandon Taylor for a 3-pointer. Then came Dakarai Tucker's fake and drive for a layup, Taylor's 3-pointer from Chapman's assist, a run of three 3-pointers (including a 4-point play) by Tucker and then Wright's flip to Dallin Bachynski for a dunk.

It was exceptional stuff, even from a team known for unselfishness. Of the Utes' first 21 baskets, 18 came via assists. One of Utah's most efficient offensive nights of the season included only five points from Wright, but he posted nine assists and plenty of other players supplied the baskets. Tucker's 19 points off the bench highlighted the effort.

The Utes' 15th straight home victory over two seasons came on a night when the "Huntsman Strong" T-shirts the players wore during warm-ups evoked multiple meanings. Many college programs stage cancer awareness events, but nowhere is the concept taken as seriously as at Utah.

The building's namesake is the founder of the Huntsman Cancer Institute and cancer is a familiar opponent of the basketball program, with Krystkowiak having lost his mother when he was 8 and assistant coach Andy Hill witnessing his father's ongoing battle with a brain tumor, among other experiences.

The halftime presentation was both somber and inspiring, concluding with fans tossing several hundred stuffed teddy bears onto the court. They're intended for HCI patients, showing them support.

There's a lot of that going around the Huntsman Center these days. The Utes are bonded by everything they've gone through. Although none of the current players had to endure that 6-25 season, they know where the program has come from, and their coaches can appreciate the good times.

As of Sunday, though, nobody was stopping to savor the break-even milestone. There's too much more to do.

"Having that edge puts you in that position you want to be in at the end of the season," Taylor said.

Who knows, the Utes could lose Thursday at UCLA and dip below .500 for this four-year stretch, but such a downturn would be only temporary. This program will keep doing big things.

Sunday, when his team was getting stops and hitting 3s, Krystkowiak did acknowledge this was Ute basketball "kind of at its finest." Even then, that was just a checkpoint, not a sign of arrival.