One of the funniest quarter by quarter box scores ive seen in a while.
20-11 Washington After 1
31-29 Utah at the half.
50 40 Washington after 3
67 57 Utah when the final horn sounded.
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I was at the game. It was a small but raucous crowd and it made for a pretty tough environment. The way they ratcheted up the defense in the 4th under those circumstances was really encouraging to see. This team is on the right track early on in the season.
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That was indeed wild with the teams alternating bad quarters, fortunately, the Utes bad ones were 1st and 3rd. Nothing like shooting 70% from the field and shooting 19(!) free throws (making 18) in the 4th quarter.
Kneepkens was cold from the start and was 0-1 in the 1st quarter, she almost air-balled a 3 in the 2nd quarter, but she was nails in getting the lead in the 4th, and making sure she was the one fouled late.
Great win, and a great prep game for conference season. That said, right now Utes are 7-0 at home, 1-1 on the road, and 1-1 at neutral. Season largely home-based to date and it was very nice to see them get their first road win against a good team.
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The Utes got its first B12 win. WBB beat ASU 102 - 82.
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The Womenâs team opened up conference play last night with an excellent 20 point win over Arizona State, and scoring over 100 points.
Matyson Wilkie missed the game for âprecautionaryâ reasons, but we did get our first look at Grace Foster the freshman Aussie. She played some minutes at the end of the first half and second half, was 2 of 3 from three ball land. When she first came in the Utes went on a nice run to finish. She has a nice stroke to her shot. A real player it seems.
ASU is a .500 team right now, but they have some shooters that gave the Utes fits at times, especially in the first 2 1/2 quarters. Brown (#23) basically scored at will in the 2nd quarter, with the Utes putting McQueen, Ross, and Kneepkens on her. Fortunately for the Utes, Brown is not very basketball smart and she picked up three fouls in the second half, the last one (while fouling out) at midcourt on Vieira while simply bringing the ball up the court. Dumbest foul I have seen this year. You are the teams leading scorer, you need to be on the court. After picking up her 4th foul she sat for a while, and the dumb foul comes pretty quickly after getting back in the game.
Utah had its way with drives to the hoop, backdoor and frontdoor cuts. That is where Kneepkens and Ross did nice work.
Ross ended the game with 19 points and 5 rebounds in 21 minutes of play. She looks like she is gaining confidence by the day, and is keeping up the aggression.
Crispe had 8 points, all at the rim after very nice passes that left her open, but, hey, considering how limited she is, it was a great game.
I think Nene Sow, in garbage time scored her first point ever for the Utes, going 1 for 2 at the line.
Because of Wilkeâs absence, freshman Brooke Walker got extended time (17 mins) and did not look overwhelmed. In fact, even though she missed her only 3 and had a horrible turnover while standing wide open at the 3 line, she scored a couple of buckets on nice drives to the hoop.
Toure had a very nice game while Johnson had some struggles. @justaute said earlier on here that Johnson doesnât look like the same player she was in years past. She was outplayed by Ross in the same number of minutes last night.
McQueen only shot 8 times in the game, but she went 3 for 6 from three and worked very hard on defense, not only against Brown (as noted earlier) but she had her hands full with #3 Skinner and #4 LoVett. Both of those guards shot the ball great, even when McQueen made it hard for them.
In the end a great win. Now off for the holidays, with a trip to Tucson coming up.
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Good seeing Foster return. Very curious as to how she will play.
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Methinks, time for Ross to start over Johnson?
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I think Ross coming off the bench is areal strength for the team overall.
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I think so too. Johnson was a 4 star recruit and is a solid veteran player. I should have made my point about her more clearly above. Against certain teams she will have trouble, like ASU with two long players. Watching Johnson try to keep that massive player from ASU from posting up, or trying to score on her looked like this photoâŚ
Even though she is 6â1" she can be overwhelmed trying to work against big players. This is why I was miffed when we didnât bring in a bigger player (beyond the Aussie injured for the year who is 6â2").
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I respect your opinion, but in basketball, shouldnât the best five players start? Ross is the top rebounder on the team and has the best shooting percentage. She at least should be getting substantially more minutes than Johnson, if not a start over her.
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Too many turnovers, but every other aspect of the game has been pretty good today. Up 19 in the fourth against Arizona in Tucson, a place we havenât won since 2018.
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19 assists on 24 made FG. That is what makes this team and style of basketball enjoyable to watch.
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Watched the game highlightsâŚUtah offense had really good movements that created terrific shot opportunities â and hit them.
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You said it so I donât have to 
.
What I loved most was the rebounding. Though she didnât score much, Ross was a rebounding fool last night.
What more can you say about Kneepkens, one rebound away from a double-double, and I remember one rebound she would have had but Ross swooped in and took it from her .
The box score doesnât show it, but even though I have complained about Johnson a lot this year, she had a very good game. She was once again smaller than the big she had to guard, but defensively won that match-up big time.
The turnover number was pretty insane. It seemed like every time down the court they would invent a new way to turn over the ball. Mostly it was the offensive fouls that got me. That officiating crew was calling a lot of stuff off the ball on screens and such.
No starter was over 30 minutes except Vieira who went 35. It seems Peterson doesnât trust the frosh PG Ray much. She has barely played once we got out of silly season. In a game when you are turning it over a lot, I can see not trusting a frosh.
Foster and Walker got some minutes but didnât do much. Wilke with three big 3 pointers off the bench.
Final word. The Utes defense was amazing. They shut down the Arizona big and leading scorer so she barely played because of foul trouble and UA only went to the line twice in the game. Was amazing to see that 2nd quarter when Arizona didnât even score but in the last 3 minutes when Swann started going nuts (22 minutes 22 points). She almost scored half of UAâs points. She could have closed her eyes and hit a 3 throwing it over her head backwards and it would have been like she was throwing it in the ocean. Just couldnât miss. And not for a lack of defense.
Overall, two 20 point wins to start conference play is a great start. It only gets harder from here. Pin the January 17 game against TCU in Ft Worth as a big game. Other than the Utes, TCU (with a newly revived Hailey Van Lith) is the only other team to beat Notre Dame this year.
Go Utes.
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This is why it frustrated me to see them get those offensive fouls/TOs. Very ticky-tacky on screens this game.
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Utah down 41-42. Started out super hot, which rarely lasts. Itâs having a hard time against ISU #18; sheâs basically a larger version Pili, just not nearly as skilled. Still, sheâs very good around the rim.
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Won a good one against ISU, 75-67.
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Now 3-0 in conference with 2 of those wins coming on the road.
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Nice win!
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