Let’s hope McQueen is ok… that injury didn’t look good at all. The only slightly encouraging thing I saw, the broadcast showed her and the trainers yukking it up a few minutes later.
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Yup. Definitely need her.
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Also, glad GK wasn’t seriously injured. That was a bit scary.
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One more on tonight’s game.
Touré – had a monster game. Had not taken many 3-pt shots, but made 4 of 6 tonight. Also was good on defense
Vieira – for a sub-30% 3-pt shooter, she hit a long-distance one with just 29 seconds left, which put Utah up by 5. Talk about a big shot in a hostile environment. Kudos.
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In 3 conference games (admittedly a small sample size), Toure is putting up 16 points, 7.7 boards, 1.7 blocks.
I remember in the preseason, Lynn talked about how the new bigs (Toure/Evans) weren’t expected to come in and replace AP on offense, but would hopefully balance that out by being better defenders. Toure has been exactly what we have needed so far and I think Evans will be a really good rotation piece next year.
Iowa State came in as a top 50 net team, so thats a terrific win for the resume.
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That was a fun game to watch. In some ways the Utes were lucky that #11 for ISU was on a minutes limit, because when she was in ISU was really good.
The defensive adjustments during the 2nd half were very good for the Utes. The shifted Johnson onto #11 and her size and ability to move her feet kept #11 in front of her and stopped her shooting. Then later, during the last few minutes, they had Vieira on her and with her speed, she hounded #11 down the court and was able to largely keep her off the board.
ISU is not a deep team. Either #55 got low post position and scored easily or #11 hit a shot. No one else really scored for them except #24 with a few makes. Those three players shot 42 of ISU’s total of 57 shots.
ISU’s #2 hounded Kneepkens all night and did a real nice job of denying her the ball. She had only 9 points and had two air-ball 3’s unguarded for the first time that I can remember. Vieira was also defended hard and she only had 2 assists. Fun fact, Johnson led the team with 6 assists and, as mentioned, did a great job on #11 in the 2nd half.
You guys are right above. When Toure shot that 3 late in the game from off the right wing, I groaned and thought bad shot, but it went in. No, went to yes very quickly.
Same thing with that late Vieira shot, she was a good three steps beyond the arc, and I groaned even louder when I saw her shooting. I went from groan to dancing in micro-seconds. That was probably Vieira’s most clutch shot she ever hit along with the layup last year with one second left on an inbounds play.
It was very scary when it looked like Kneepkens had twisted her knee, but as she was assisted off she put weight on the leg, so I didn’t panic as much. With McQueen, she put no weight on the foot when leaving, so more concern there.
Freshman update, Walker played a couple of minutes and had a bad turnover, and was never seen again. Foster didn’t play at all.
Ross didn’t play well at all and it seemed every time she touched the ball it was either a TO or a missed shot.
I thought Wilke played very well and hit a couple of shots that stopped ISU momentum, and Crispe had a decent game, her 2nd in a row.
Overall, a great road win against a decent ISU team. Utah has now shown up in the “others getting votes” for the national poll. Next up, Wednesday against #12 ranked Kansas St. Will be a barnburner for sure.
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Someone in the men’s thread said that the announcers for the ISU game were terrible. I just want to echo that comment very loudly here. They were absolutely terrible in providing any information about what was going on. Almost never announced who a foul was on, or how many they had. Only mentioned that #11 was a great free throw shooter and then said nothing about how Kneepkens is even better when she shot free throws. Didn’t announce who had come into a game, who got rebounds, etc.
Just horrific.
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Yeah, that was me. Glad I could see the action, because there was no description or information from the announcers.
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WBB is now ranked for the first time this season at #22.
fwiw…thought the female announced made a good observation early in the name. She said ISU basically backed off its effort on offensive rebounding and quickly made the transition into defense because Utah has a very fast defense-to-offense transition. Thought that was interesting.
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That was interesting, but ISU stilled outrebounded the Utes.
That said, Vieira gave wide open looks to Toure on the break I think 3 times, and Toure blew the layup each time. The Utes would have never sweated the game if they could make a layup on the break.
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My exact reaction – ISU still out-rebounded Utes.
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It seems McQueen has a high ankle sprain and may be out for at least a few games.
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Game day!
#22 Utes hosting #12 KSU Wildcats.
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Wilke should be able to cover what McQueen did offensively. The questions really are who is going to step up and fill Wilke’s points off the bench, and can Wilke play defense at the high level that McQueen usually does.
Looking forward to the game.
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I’m definitely curious to see how Wilke performs. It’s not that I don’t think she’s a good, capable player. She seems to have a different playing style than that of KM. Although KM is a terrific shooter, she’s also quite aggressive in driving toward the basket and take defenders off the dribble.
I’m just curious how her playing style changes, if at all, the team’s performance as her role/time increases. KM often plays with a “hair is on fire” style.
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At the KSU game, Utah is being completely outclassed. The team looks slow (KSU is quick), can’t shoot, and too much dribbling.
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I was finally able to watch the game last night. I mean, wow, KSU is good, especially that #4 Sundell. Utes went down early by 13 after KSU went 6-6 to open the game including 4-4 from 3 point land. All uphill from there.
I mean KSU is really good. Even leaving out the result against the Utes, KSU shot over 50% from the field, and have held their opponents to less than an average of 55 points. They also only allow something like 28% opponent 3 point percentage. As I watched, my mind would say, wow, the Utes are cold, and can’t catch a break, then I remembered what other teams use to say after games against the Utes in the Majerus years where every team the Utes played had “cold” nights. I think KSU was that good defensively that it wasn’t a cold night for the Utes, KSU is just that good defensively.
Can’t say much good at all about the Utes, but KSU’s guards and Sundell got a lot of open shots and it just makes me wonder what kind of difference it would have made having McQueen and her good defense on them.
Frosh update… Foster and Walker got minutes but did not impress. Ray got garbage time points and did nothing.
I thought Ross and Johnson were our best players last night.
Kneepkens missed something like her first six shots and none of them were particular close to falling. Second game in a row where she has been shut down defensively. Against ISU the Utes got enough offense from others, but not against KSU. Teams now key on her because the secondary scoring has been inconsistent. The coach needs to make some adjustments and figure out a way to allow Kneepkens to get her looks.
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KSU did what ISU could not – tough 1v1 defensive efforts. Candidly, GK had a difficult time getting open. For some reason, there were a lot of individual dribbling instead of good team movement – likely a result of KSU’s tough defense. KSU definitely has more athletes than Utah does.
Also, Wilke had a very tough time getting off her shots; her game is definitely different from that of McQueen. Foster looked lost. So far, none of the freshmen looked to be impactful.
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I have noticed from the men’s a women’s games that the BigXII officials allow much more physical play than did the PAC
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A very nice win for the Utes on Saturday against Houston. The first three quarters were troublesome as the Utes shot poorly but against a team not nearly as good as KSU. Fortunately, Houston didn’t shoot any better and the Utes dominated on the boards.
The 4th quarter was a reverse of everything to that point for the Utes, they hit shots, rebounded nearly all of Houston’s misses and pulled away for the nice win.
Houston is not a good team, but even then they shot only 26% from the field for the game.
For the week, Utah 116 opponents 113 with a 1-1 record. The beat Houston a bit more than they lost to KSU.
I was surprised to see Peyton McFarland on Houston. She did not play well and has regressed as a player since her time at Utah.
Frosh update: Walker played 16 minutes and actually had a nice driving layup and made a three and scored 7 points, might have been her best game this year. Foster played a lot more but didn’t show out. Ray played garbage time.
When Nene Sow had the best game (except Walker) off the bench, then you know the bench was not good. Ross got some rebounds and 4(!) steals, but not much else.
Earlier this year, I wrote that I didn’t see much in Toure after some early season games. Boy, howdy, was I wrong. Since conference play has begun she has been our best player, even better than Kneepkens. Last night was a tour-de-force with a double-double, 22 points and 12 rebounds. She has looked much better and I eat crow.
Next up for the Utes is a road trip to Waco and Ft. Worth. Both Baylor and TCU are excellent, and after next week we will know a lot more about how the Utes stack up in the conference.
Baylor has the Colorado transfer that gave us a lot of problems last year in Vonleh and just beat ASU by nearly thirty in Tempe. TCU has three excellent players in Haily Van Lith (last seen winning bronze for the USA in 3x3 in Paris and playing poorly for LSU in their loss in the tourney), Sedona Prince (a big that presents a challenge to Toure), and the under-rated Madison Conner (transfer from Arizona).
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