Just as most students are settling into the beginning of a new semester — adjusting their alarm clocks for dreaded morning classes, scrounging up money for books, navigating the quickest paths to their new classes — the Utah women’s hoop squad is grinding through the midway mark of Pac-12 play.
After just eight games of conference play, you could say the Utes have gone through the ringer already. Upset wins and blowout losses to ranked opponents, slow starts and fast finishes, eye-popping individual performances and steady improvements are all ingredients in the flavor of basketball Utah is playing this season. So, in light of round numbers, lets take a look at Utah’s overall performance through its first eight of 18 conference games.
To put it to bare numbers, Utah is 4-4. Four wins against Washington State, Washington, Cal and Arizona and four losses to Stanford, Arizona State, Oregon State and Oregon combine to rank Utah’s schedule the 55th toughest in the nation and eighth in the Pac-12, according to the NCAA’s Rating Percentage Index (RPI).
The Utes have played some really good teams and some, well, good teams. The Pac-12 is the best conference in the nation this year, according to the same RPI measurement, and for Utah to be .500 at the midway mark of conference play in the strongest conference in the nation is a big win.
However, it shouldn’t surprise fans that that isn’t enough yet for first-year head coach Lynne Roberts.
“I’d give us a solid B,” Roberts said when asked how she would grade her team’s performance thus far.
All season long Roberts has cited continuous improvement rather than outcome as her measuring stick for her team. She understands there are going to be bumps in the road, especially for a team that sat on the conference floor last season.
But progress aside, she isn’t satisfied yet.
“We certainly haven’t played our best basketball yet, so I’d give us a solid B. I think we’ve had some ‘A’ games, and I think we’ve had a couple ‘C’ [games]. As a classic B-student [myself] I know what that looks like,” Roberts said, smiling.
Thus far, Utah has been a classic middle-of-the-pack team. On a per-possession basis, the Utes are the ninth-ranked offense and the 10th-ranked defense in the Pac-12.
The most significant bellwether for this team is how it rebounds the ball. Behind Utah center Emily Potter, who is nabbing 11 rebounds per game, the Utes have the second best rebounding margin in the conference. In wins, Utah’s rebound rate is 71.9 — that means the Utes are grabbing nearly 72 percent of all available rebounds in wins. In losses, however, Utah’s rebound rate dips to just 39.9 percent.
Rebounds, it’s been said, are an effort stat. A measurement of willingness to scrap, claw and hustle, and that is where the Utes have shined brightest this season.
“That’s something that I always want our teams to be known for,” Roberts said. “You may beat us, but its going to be really hard to do so. We’re not going to win every game, but when you do beat us, you’re going to walk off the floor like, ‘Whew, they were hard to beat.’ ”
For all this talk of stats, numbers, metrics and more, the one number that should stick out to fans is 236. That was Utah’s RPI last season. In 2014-2015 the Utes had the 236th-ranked strength of schedule in the country, and they won nine games all season.
There are a lot of reasons Utah didn’t excel last year, most of all being an appalling rash of injuries. But to play a schedule 55th ranked after last being 236th ranked and to have already won three more games with a month left in the season is truly remarkable.
When asked what senior point guard Dani Rodriguez was seeing differently about her team this year, she responded frankly.
“A lot of confidence,” she said. “A lot of confidence in the way our season is going.”
@westinjay