All season long, head coach Anthony Levrets has maintained the stereotypical coaching sentiments. The Utes have just been taking the season “one game at a time,” and their “biggest game is the next one.”
But now, that cliché is valid — Utah’s next and final game of the season is truly their biggest. On Saturday, the Utes play Drexel for the WNIT championship game in Philadelphia. Levrets can finally talk about their next opponent while simultaneously talking about the team’s ultimate goal.
After starting the season 9-1, the Utes struggled in conference play to drop to 10-9. But since that tough stretch, Utah is 13-4 in its past 17 games, and its record is a respectable 23-13. The Utes have won four of their five tournament games on the road and will look to do the same in Philadelphia on Saturday.
“It’s a national tournament,” Levrets said on the ESPN 700 postgame show after defeating Kansas State on Wednesday. “It doesn’t matter where we play.”
To come out as champions, the Utes will need to continue their road-warrior mentality against the Drexel Dragons. Drexel (27-10) has beaten two SEC teams in four days en route to the title game after going the first 30 years of the program’s existence without defeating an SEC foe.
In their semifinal victory against Florida, they led for the final 35 minutes of the game and weren’t challenged the rest of the way — the exact opposite of Utah. The Utes needed overtime to beat Kansas State after coughing up a second-half lead like they had a lung disease.
To cut down the nets, the Utes will need to stop Drexel’s Hollie Mershon, who averages 19.6 points per game and has scored in double digits in 34 of 37 games this season. She had 28 points on Wednesday night against the Gators.
“It all starts on the defensive end of the floor,” Levrets said. “If you defend and rebound and make it hard on teams every single possession to get shots, over the course of 40 minutes, it wears on teams. Most nights, if you defend and rebound, it gives you a chance to win.”
If the Utes can manage to make defensive stops on Mershon and the rest of Drexel, they will have a legitimate shot at bringing the WNIT trophy back to Salt Lake City. In addition to strong defense, the Utes will need to pound the ball down low to Taryn Wicijowski and Michelle Plouffe like they have all tournament long. The two bigs combined for 36 of Utah’s 54 points Wednesday.
The other big factor on Saturday will be Wicijowski’s footwork near the basket. In the semifinal, she was called for several traveling violations, costing her team possessions and potential points. The Utes can’t afford to waste any possessions with turnovers.
“I do some things with my footwork that not a lot of players do,” Wicijowski said. “For someone who hasn’t seen me play before, they will think, ‘She shouldn’t be able to get where she just got.’ It’s frustrating, but I can understand it if they’ve never seen me play before.”
Tipoff is at 1 p.m. and will be televised on the CBS Sports Network.