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LAS VEGAS — Tanner Toolson took off on the fastbreak and had visions of a two-hand flush.
Then Abilene Christian's Airion Simmons broke it up with a hard foul — and left Toolson flat on the floor after a hard fall.
"We have to play through those things, and so do other teams," he said. "We don't get to where we are without some adversity."
Just not that kind of adversity, one should hope, as the Utah Valley Wolverines enter the Western Athletic Conference Tournament as the no. 5 seed, facing no. 8 seed California Baptist Wednesday night in a first-round matchup at 7 p.m. MDT, with the winner advancing to face no. 4 seed Seattle U in the quarterfinals Thursday.
"The message is we have to be who we are," Wolverines head coach Todd Phillips said. "Everyone's going to be playing at a maximum level of intensity now that we're in the WAC tournament."
Utah Valley seems to be playing at that maximum level now, especially over the last month and a half. The Wolverines have ripped off 7 wins in their last 8 games, with four of them coming by five points or less.
The hot streak has been highlighted by a 63-60 upset of Tarleton State last Thursday at Wisdom Gym, which ended the Texans' 10-game winning streak. The Wolverines ended the game on a 17-2 run over the final 8:50, holding Tarleton State off the board for the last five minutes.
"That win was vindication for us; we were hearing a lot about how we weren't tough enough," Phillips said. "It showed us toughness can travel, especially in hostile environments."
One of the players that has benefitted recently is Layton High graduate and former Deseret News Mr. Basketball winner Ethan Potter, whose 22-point, 15-rebound performance single-handedly carried the Wolverines in their win over the Texans last Thursday.
"We now have the mindset if we can beat teams down low, we can beat anybody," Potter said.
And it's becoming contagious. Guard Drake Allen has snapped out of his scoring slump to put up double-digit points in four straight games, while Toolson himself scored 13 first-half points with three 3-pointers, finishing with 17 points in Saturday's win at Abilene Christian.
The second unit has also benefitted, too. Forward Caleb Stone-Carrawell added 12 points and 15 points, respectively, on the season-ending road swing.
"Early in the season, we were pressing too much and asking people to do more than what they were capable of," Phillips said. "Adding Potter to the lineup really helped the players get comfortable with their roles."
He added while the Wolverines' new identity as tough, physical team who scores a bunch in the paint won't win a lot of games running away, to have multiple people who can step up is huge — with Potter being one of them.
"We're really confident in what we're doing right now," Potter said. "There aren't a lot of things we want to drastically change at this point."
That said, no one is expecting any games in the WAC tourney to be easy, including Phillips, who now has won more games than any other first-year coach in Utah Valley's Division I history.
"Preparation is the key thing," Phillips said. "I learned from Mark Madsen that although you want to work on a lot of things, you have to keep it simple."
And the fact of the matter is that everyone is excited — especially Toolson. Besides watching multiple highlight videos of various conference tournament games the last few days, the redshirt freshman called the Orleans Arena an "electric" atmosphere, taking in memories from his time with BYU last season.
"From here on out, we know anything can happen," he said. "It's just so cool to see everyone gel at the right time."
