The loss of freshman forward Donnie Tillman will have a much more far-reaching effect. Tillman, who’d become a mainstay in the Utah rotation in the first nine games, sat out the BYU game with a sprained left foot. The 6-foot-7, 225-pound hard-nosed forward watched from the sideline with a protective boot as Utah fell 77-65 in the Marriott Center.
Tillman has seemed like a one-man bench brigade at times. Despite coming off the bench in each of the first nine games, Tillman played an average of 22.9 minutes per game and scored 10 points or more in seven consecutive games, including a 20-point game on the road against Butler.