Elaine Elliott is pissed.
After seeing her U women’s basketball team battle back from a 12-point deficit, surge ahead of conference power UNLV, then throw it all away with a bevy of unforced errors in the last two minutes and drop to the break-even mark, she was literally too peeved to even chew her team out in a post-game locker room rant.
“I’m not going to talk to them till [Friday],” she said after the game. “I’m mad and I shouldn’t talk to them.”
Despite getting worked on the boards (33-23) and at the charity stripe (33-13 FTAs), the Utes still found a way to contend with a UNLV team (17 3, 5-2 MWC) that boasts two of the top three scorers in the league and is second in the conference standings.
Trailing 32-20, the Utes (9-9, 2-4 MWC) went on a 14-4 run to end the first half and pull within 36-34 at the break, despite getting outshot 54.2 to 44.8 percent.
They did it again in the second half. Down 47-42, Utah went on a 10-2 spurt to take a 52-49 advantage.
“The kids changed. We started getting some better energy,” Elliott said. “It helps when you get a couple kids off the bench playing hard. Then you just have to hope that the kids will carry us down the stretch.”
In this case, however, the stretch was Utah’s undoing. In the last two minutes, with the game tied at 67, the Rebels’ Constance Jinks stole a pass from Erin Gibbons and scored a layup, Erin Johansson was left open in the corner and nailed a trey, Jinks stole a pass from Lauren Beckman and converted the free throws on the subsequent foul, Gibbons forced up an awkward 3 pointer that careened wildly off the glass, then sealed the Utes’ fate by throwing the ball out of bounds with 12.5 seconds left.
“Gibby did more than a few things down the stretch to hurt us, didn’t she?” said Elliott.
Linda Frhlich led the Rebs with a game-high 26 points and 9 rebounds. Beckman led Utah with 22 points on 10-of-11 shooting, and Gibbons had 14 points and a career-high 8 assists, but also 5 turnovers and one angry coach.
“Maybe the real story here is that we shouldn’t even be in the game with that team, that we shouldn’t beat them,” Elliott said. “But I think we should and so I’m irritated.
“It stinks. I won’t get over this for a while.”