Through the ups and downs the Utah women’s basketball team has had already this season, it may be easy for fans to forget a few things. One of those, given the success of the team relative to last year, is that this is Utah head coach Lynne Roberts’ first year with the Utes.
The other is that this is just the first year of an organizational overhaul under the direction of the Bay Area native.
“It’s like any job — there’s a learning curve,” Roberts said. “I think for me, coaching a team, leading a team, is not new. It’s just what you’re learning is the specific people. So the only thing that really changes is who you’re leading, which is significant. So that’s mostly what I’m learning right now, is about these guys. What they respond to, what they don’t.”
Under Roberts, the Utes have adjusted to a very different style of play, one that is characterized by up-tempo offense and hard-nosed defense. Getting players to buy into a brand new coaching philosophy has its challenges, but the Utes’ success this year reflects their attitudes towards Roberts.
“She’s fantastic. She handles [herself] with so much composure and grace,” said junior forward Paige Crozon. “After our loss [to Oregon] I was a little bit nervous for what was going to happen … She was extremely positive and optimistic that we can still achieve our goals even though we’ve hit this adversity or maybe a road block along the way.”
Roberts is building something at Utah, laying a foundation made up of her successes and failures at Pacific University, where she coached for nine seasons. The Tigers played an uptempo brand of basketball, something Roberts has already instilled in Utah in her first season.
But she’s also adapting, watching and learning what will best suit her team.
“I’m learning on the floor too, what we’re good at what we’re not. As I came into the season, [some things] I thought we could do, I’m learning we’re better at something else,” Roberts said.
With the season in mid-swing and the Utes having some success, it’s hard to focus on the future. But with three players in their final year, two of those key rotational cogs in Dani Rodriguez and Katie Kuklok, Utah will have some shoes to fill in the off-season.
Utah has already signed two national letters of intent to perimeter players Megan Jacobs and Kiana Moore and will add Daneesha Provo to the mix next season as well, who is redshirting due to NCAA transfer rules.
Nonetheless, Roberts has kept her ear to the ground on the recruiting track.
“We want versatile athletes that can score,” Roberts said of the types of players that suit her system.
Clearly, as Utah currently sits on the wrong end of a five-game losing streak, it hasn’t been all roses for the Utes this season. Utah put up a disappointing performance to what appeared to be a very winnable home game to Oregon followed by a gut-punch of a fourth quarter collapse to UCLA last Sunday.
But Roberts is more concerned with the big picture — she understands granularity of a game in late January in her first year at Utah.
“This season is not about outcome — this season is about continuing to improve and establishing our culture,” Roberts said.
@westinjay