The Utes have been in many close games to begin the season.
Games against Louisville, Virginia, Gonzaga and Marquette were all decided by a couple of key plays down the stretch.
Unfortunately for Utah, aside from the Marquette game, the Utes came up just short in all of those games. After taking a gander at the box score of every game so far in Utah’s season, there appears to be one particular stat that is giving the team a hard time, and could very well be the statistic that is keeping it from winning the down-to-the-wire contests against top teams in the country.
Turnovers.
It is really the only glaring stat that needs correcting thus far. Opponents are shooting below 40 percent against the Utes, and Utah has a rebound margin of plus-5.5 per game.
But turnovers don’t look so hot right now. Utah is averaging 22.7 a game, and has a margin of minus 8.2 per game. That’s good enough for last in the Mountain West Conference.
Utah was bound to have a little bit of growing pains at the beginning of the season. After the departure of senior All-American point guard Leilani Mitchell, there was practically no experience left at the most important position in basketball when it comes to turnovers.
“With Leilani gone, we just have a different team, so more people are having to handle the ball, which leads to more turnovers,” Kalee Whipple said.
Head coach Elaine Elliott is trying to do all she can to correct her team’s turnover problem, but admits that it is a tough situation to correct.
“There’s just not much you can do other than executing your plays correctly,” Elliott said. “You can’t just go practice not making turnovers. It’s not necessarily a skill that you can work on. This is going to take time and patience to correct. We just need our players to trust the offense and each other more, and not try and do so much stuff on our own.”
The turnover issue seems to be fairly widespread through the team. Stars Whipple and Morgan Warburton lead the team in turnovers with 29 and 28, respectively, but that is to be expected since they are the Utes’ two best scoring threats and have the ball in their hands much more often than anyone else. What is troubling is the fact that every player on the team seems to be having problems not turning over the ball. Not one player has an assist-to-turnover ratio above 1.0. Hannah Stephens, Katie King, and Warburton have the best ratios, at 0.7.
Elliot’s patience with the turnover issue might be the only thing that will correct the problem by season’s end. Freshman point guards Stephens and Janita Badon will only get more comfortable with the ball in their hands as the season goes on. Once that happens, the offense can be more fluid.
It will take a team effort to correct this issue, however. As evidenced by all of the close games Utah has taken part in so far this year, those extra possessions can become ever so crucial down the stretch.
Erik DaenitzDeseree Byard and Kalee Whipple jump for a loose ball. The Utes have been prone to turnovers in their first six games this year.