U. BB: Tavita's back, for now

The Utah basketball team was back practicing Monday afternoon with a new face — freshman guard Jace Tavita. You remember how we reported two weeks ago that the former Brighton High guard was being held out of practice because the NCAA red-flagged his high school transcript for review.
Now the NCAA says Tavita can practice with the team while they continue to review his case. Utah coach Jim Boylen has hope that Tavita will be cleared to play this year, but says “I have no idea” on what the outcome will be. He also doesn’t know when that might be, but hopes it’s soon, since official practice begins Oct. 17.
If he is cleared to play, Tavita could be in the mix of Utah’s regular rotation of 9 or 10 players. In Monday’s hour-long practice, he was playing quite a bit with the first-line players such as Luke Nevill, Shaun Green and Kim Tillie.
As we’ve said before, the freshman who is most likely to see the most action is Jordan Cyphers, the 6-4 guard from Wichita. He often plays alongside Luka Drca or Tyler Kepkay and coach Boylen says the Utes are counting on Cyphers to pick up some of the 3-point offense lost by the graduation of Johnnie Bryant.
“He’s here to make shots,” Boylen said of Cyphers.
Among Utah’s other freshmen, Boylen praised Josh Sharp for picking up the defense better than the other freshmen, he said center Jason Washburn has to realize he’s not the biggest guy any more and that he needs to break some bad habits and that Chris Hines, the point guard from Texas, is still hobbled by an ankle injury suffered in August and hopefully will be ready to go by the 17th.