The losing streak continued for the Utah women’s basketball team, as it lost to Washington 63-51 Sunday in Seattle. With the loss, the Utes have now dropped eight straight games, all in conference play.
After going on a 7-0 run, Utah was able to close the contest to a two-possession game with less than four minutes remaining, but Washington countered, holding the Utes scoreless for the remainder of the game, to pull away for the victory.
Utah got off to a cold start, not scoring for the first three minutes, and quickly trailed 11-0. Soon after, they made a 13-point run to get the game within two points, before Washington answered with a run of their own. This pattern persisted, with the Huskies building a lead before Utah came fighting back.
The Utes were without their starting backcourt, Danielle Rodriguez and Paige Crozon, who were both sidelined due to injuries sustained against Washington State on Friday. Utah head coach Anthony Levrets said their absence was a real blow to the team.
“I don’t understand it,” Levrets said. “You don’t know what type of character you have until you go through this. If you keep fighting like we are, we will eventually come through this. I don’t know when all this bad stuff is going to end. But the fight and effort of this group is going to serve us well.”
Because of the injuries, the Utes started three freshmen, with Tanaeya Boclair scoring 14 points and Joeseta Fatuesi adding eight.
The two freshmen were also responsible in helping to defend Washington’s Jazmine Davis and Kelsey Plum. Davis went 1-of-14 in the game, while Plum shot 6-of-18 from the field.
“I was really happy with Jo,” Levrets said. “She’s got a great future ahead of her, and Tanaeya obviously was really good offensively and [guarding Davis and Plum was] a tough task those kids shared. We just have our struggles offensively, and tonight we had more than normal.”
Senior Cheyenne Wilson, who is averaging just five points per game this season, returned to her hometown and dropped 13 on the Huskies.
With the losing streak growing, Levrets is at a loss of how to turn things around.
“I’m not sure what adjustments we can make,” Levrets said. “Right now we have six of our kids who were in our top eight to start the year [who] didn’t play today. But we have who we have. You have your players, and you have to coach them, and you gotta keep trying to get better and that’s what we’ll do. We’ll go in on Tuesday and work on our offense, and keep trying to get better offensively. And Wednesday, Thursday, get ready for whoever we play Friday.”
Levrets said the team has to find the will to get to end because, although he is proud of the way the Utes are playing, they still need to find a win.
“We defended, rebounded, we gave ourselves a chance, we did that tonight,” Levrets said. “I’m really proud of our effort defensively, but at some point in time we got to break through and I don’t even know how we are going to practice this week, but keep fighting, and we will. I told them before I’m going to keep fighting for them, our staff is going to keep fighting for them. They got to keep fighting for what’s across their chest and see if we can finally break through.”
The Utes will get their next chance to break the losing streak against Arizona on Friday at the Huntsman Center.
k.brenneisen.chronicle.utah.edu
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