It was a season that will always be remembered — just not for the reasons Elaine Elliott and her Utah women’s basketball team had hoped. Even though the Utes finished the year at 27-5, two of those losses came at the worst possible time.
The downfall happened in a matter of days. One minute, the Utes were riding a 22-game winning streak and ranked No. 12 in the nation. Life was good. Elliott was named Region 7 Coach of the Year, Leilani Mitchell earned MWC Player of the Year honors and Morgan Warburton and Kalee Whipple earned All-MWC accolades. National gurus predicted that the Utes would receive a No. 3 seed in the NCAA tournament.
Without warning, it all came crashing down. Suddenly, the season was over and the Utes were trudging off the court at Purdue heartbroken after being prematurely eliminated from the NCAA tournament.
Elliott sums up the year like this: “A very successful season with a, you know, a disappointing last two weeks.”
On March 8, the magical season was still on track. After beating UNLV 82-46 in the regular-season finale, Utah players — and even Elliott herself — celebrated by dancing just off center court. The Utes had just finished a 16-0 sweep through the MWC regular season.
“It’s very difficult to do what we did during the regular season,” Elliott said. “It’s very difficult to be an undefeated league team in any league. There’s perhaps quite an emotional toll that that takes. To do that means you’ve been immensely consistent. That’s a very difficult thing to accomplish in sports.”
Indeed. Only one other MWC women’s team has gone undefeated through the regular season: The 2001 Utes, who went on to the Sweet 16 in the NCAA Tournament. However, this year’s team was eliminated after only one game in both the MWC and NCAA tournaments.
It’s still unclear exactly what happened at the baffling conference tourney when the Utes (then 27-3) fell to Colorado State (3-27) in what was perhaps the biggest upset in the history of the conference-an upset noteworthy enough to be featured on ESPN SportsCenter that night.
Ironically, the ESPN coverage was probably the most significant press the Utes received during their entire remarkable season-and the NCAA tournament selection committee must have been tuned in. The following Monday, brackets were announced. In spite of the loss, experts still had the Utes pegged as high as No. 4 seed. On Selection Monday, though, the Utes were shocked to learn that, despite being ranked 18th in the nation, they’d been relegated to an eighth seed and would have to play ninth-seeded Purdue on the Boilermakers’ home court.
“I have to be honest,” Elliott said. “I was extremely emotionally affected by what happened, by the NCAA committee’s treatment of us.”
Even if the Utes had gotten past Purdue in front of thousands of Boilermaker fans, their next game would’ve forced them to take on top-seeded Tennessee. Any way you look at it, a trip to the Sweet 16 had become an extreme long shot.
“I’ve been in this a long time, and I know — at least based on previous committees and previous priorities for our national championships — I know what they look at,” Elliott said. “I know the formula. I know what you have to do. There have been years when I absolutely knew we weren’t going to make the case.”
This year, however, Elliott knew she and the Utes had made a strong case.
The Utes lost tough overtime games to tournament-invitees Stanford and Marist, beat non-conference foes Nebraska and Minnesota and didn’t have one hiccup in MWC play, twice topping Wyoming, which spent most of the season in the Top 25.
“I know where we belong,” Elliott said. “This was not fair treatment based on our resume, and that’s very hard for me. I knew that our only recourse was just to win on Sunday. The only way we were going to prove that to the committee was if we beat Purdue. They can now still just go, ‘See, told ya,’ and just discount the fact that it was a home game for Purdue.”
It’s still unclear exactly what went wrong during those final two weeks. From tipoff of the Mountain West Conference Tournament opening-round game against Colorado State until the end of the season, Utah just wasn’t the team it had been all year. The confidence wasn’t there, the shots weren’t falling and the mojo had mysteriously vanished.
Both Colorado State and Purdue managed to cause problems for the Utes on the defensive end, implementing intense defenses that crippled Utah’s ability to score.
“Our play, in terms of our shooting and scoring, producing points, that’s what fell off,” Elliott said. “We did some very good things in that Purdue game. The last piece of the puzzle was hitting shots.”
Despite how it ended, Elliott has fond feelings for the players who made the season possible.
“Everything about it was a plus for me,” Elliott said. “I mean it when I say thanks to my players. They were a joy to be around. They worked hard for us. There was not one thing about coaching them and watching them play and seeing their results that wasn’t wonderful for me.”