When Utah coach and East Grand Rapids native Jim Boylen comes to Crisler Arena on Friday night, it will be more than just his Runnin’ Utes pride pushing to take down the Michigan men’s basketball team.

There will be a bit of Spartan in him too — a residual effect of being a part of the Michigan State men's basketball coaching staff.

Boylen — an assistant under Michigan State coach Jud Heathcote from 1987 to 1992 and an assistant under current Spartan coach Tom Izzo from 2005 to 2007 — returns to the Crisler sideline for the first time since his stints in East Lansing. In his time with the Spartans, Michigan State went to the NCAA Tournament five times and the NIT once.

But Boylen has faced the Wolverines as a head coach before. This game will mark the second of a home-and-home series with Utah. Last year, Utah ran away with a 68-52 win in Salt Lake City. In that game, despite Manny Harris’s 25 points, six rebounds and four steals, the Wolverines couldn't keep up with the Runnin’ Utes, who finished the game with a 13-1 run.

This year, Utah (6-2 overall) is led by junior guard Will Clyburn, who’s in his first season there after transferring from Marshalltown Community College in Iowa. The Detroit native is averaging more than 20 points and nine rebounds per game.

When Michigan faced Utah last season, the Runnin’ Utes won the rebound battle 41-25 and the Wolverines were visibly overpowered in the post by 7-foot-3 center David Foster.

“He is incredible,” Michigan coach John Beilein said of Foster on Thursday night. “I’ve never seen a guy average four points a game and have such an impact in a game. He did it last year … and he’ll do it again.”

Michigan (6-2) will look to limit how much Foster can actually do after spending time this week focusing on their post and team defense. Redshirt freshman Jordan Morgan will be the man called upon to slow Foster.

"It’ll be interesting, because I was thinking it would be like me trying to guard Morgan in the post a little bit," junior Stu Douglass said. "But I think Jordan’s gotten better every day on the defensive end."

Everyone on Michigan’s roster will have to be better on the defensive end. The Wolverines gave up 65 points to Concordia last week — the only other team to score that much this season was the University of Texas El Paso — and Utah is averaging more than 74 points per game this season.

The Wolverines won’t be thinking about Concordia when they take the floor Friday night in the third game of their eight-game home stretch, but there were takeaways that Michigan can learn from in their close, rough outing with the Cardinals.

“There were some very good things,” Beilein said of his team watching the game tape. "But there were some things that this is what were talking about, ‘You do this against Utah and they will dunk on you all night long.’ So there were some great learning moments from that.”