The Great Debate |
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Which basketball squad will prevail? |
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Men’s team on track to dominate |
Plouffe will push women to excel |
 When it comes to Utah athletics over the past decade or so, the most recognized teams have been football and gymnastics. After the late Rick Majerus left the Runnin’ Utes in 2004, the team began to struggle, and fans quit coming to the Huntsman Center. However, I believe Utah is on its way back up and will have a more successful 2013 campaign than its female counterpart. The Runnin’ Utes were not in a good place in Fall 2011. They were about to enter the tough Pac-12 conference, and head coach Larry Krystkowiak had been forced over the previous few months to basically find whomever he could to fill the roster. The result was an awful team that finished the season with a 6-25 record. After a normal recruiting cycle, Utah improved last year, as it finished the regular season 10th in the conference and then shocked the Pac-12 by making it to the semifinals of the conference tournament in March. The momentum from last season’s finish along with another solid recruiting class show that the Utes are moving in the right direction in order to compete as an elite team in the Pac-12. The rest of the conference is taking notice, as Utah was picked by the media to finish ninth in the Pac-12 this season. That’s a pretty nice jump after being picked dead last in the previous two media polls, but I think voters still sold the Utes short. They have gained the skill and experience needed to perform in the conference, and they’ll deliver this season under Krystkowiak’s guidance. The Utah women’s team has been more successful than the men since the squads joined the Pac-12, but that will change this season. While both teams have seven returning players who saw at least a decent amount of playing time a year ago, the women will be without a key piece, as star forward Taryn Wicijowski will be out for the year because of an ACL injury. In her place, head coach Anthony Levrets will be relying on a group of four players that have very little college experience, including two freshmen who have none. Without Wicijowski, Levrets’ bunch will struggle. Defenses will key in on forward Michelle Plouffe, which will force the guards to make more plays than they may have been anticipating. In other words, the Utes could struggle to put up enough points to beat some of the better Pac-12 teams in the country. Another sign that points to the men having a better year than the women is the idea of progression. While Krystkowiak’s crew has improved its conference win total in each of the past two years, Levrets’ group hasn’t. Of course the men have had a bigger hole to dig out of than the women did when the Pac-12 gig started, but if the women aren’t careful, the men could soon surpass them. Both teams need to get better in conference play, and the men are in a better position to do that entering the season. With both squads’ seasons set to tip off Friday night with exhibition games at the Huntsman Center, each has high hopes of doing good things to fill their now-blank canvases. When everything gets broken down, it’s the men who will have done the most good things come the madness that is March. |
 The Huntsman Center will be home to one basketball squad this year that will finish the season with a winning record — the women’s basketball team. It’s entirely true the Utes might not be as good as they were last year. To begin, they will have to figure out how to succeed without star forward Taryn Wicijowski, who is out for the season after she tore her ACL over the summer. She is a force in the post because of her great ability to both score and rebound, and just her presence alone will be missed. Additionally, Utah lost guards Iwalani Rodrigues and Rachel Messer to graduation. Danielle Rodriguez started for the majority of her rookie campaign last year, but fellow sophomore Paige Crozon will have to step up in her second year if the Utes hope to have another winning season. Thankfully for Utah head coach Anthony Levrets and company, one of the best players to ever don a Utes jersey will be returning. Forward Michelle Plouffe enters the season with a lot of buzz surrounding her, as she was named a preseason All-American by the Sporting News. Her skills, leadership, experience and desire to win will prove to be the catalyst for another winning season for Utah. Behind the Canadian, the Utes will once again have a fine year after making it to the WNIT Championship Game a season ago. The Runnin’ Utes, on the other hand, look on paper to be an improved squad from last year, but honestly, I think it’s a bunch of hype with little substance. Head coach Larry Krystkowiak is stoked on the players he has brought in, and the media is quite optimistic that Utah will build on the strong finish it had last March. The problem is that I remember optimism at the beginning of last season for the men’s basketball team, too. They were really close to being good, but in the end, they only won five conference games prior to their unexpected run in the Pac-12 Tournament. I think this year will be eerily similar. They picked up some promising pieces, such as Delon Wright and Kenneth Ogbe, but they picked up promising players last year, too, and took forever to gel. Jordan Loveridge is coming back, so that’s good for the Utes, but once again, I don’t think the additions they’ve made this season will be enough to compete in the conference. The women have been picked to finish seventh in the Pac-12. Leaving it to experts to give a proper and full evaluation, this is the same preseason ranking they were given before last season. In other words, the losses they’ve experienced were not enough to warrant lowered expectations. Based on their schedule and their preseason ranking, I expect the women to win 20 games this year. According to a similar preseason poll of media who covers the Pac-12, the Utah men’s team will finish ninth in the conference. That’s an improvement over their dead last ranking in the previous two preseason polls, but I think they’re still going to end up with a losing record. Over the course of the season, they’ll face the three teams who were picked to finish below them a total of five times. If the Runnin’ Utes win all five of those and go unbeaten in non-conference games, they’ll win 17 contests in the regular season. In short, the women’s basketball team was good last year, and I expect that trend to continue. The men’s squad has been struggling for several years, and although they made some progress last year, expect more of the same from them this season. |
Great Debate: Which basketball squad will prevail?
October 29, 2013