The Utah women’s basketball team is looking to redeem itself in Los Angeles this weekend when it faces off against USC on Friday and UCLA on Sunday afternoon after losing to both the Trojans and Bruins earlier this season in the Huntsman Center.
The Utes are coming off their first conference win of the season against Arizona, making their record 1-9 in the Pac-12. Now that they have their first win under their belt the Utes will be looking for revenge.
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Utah had three point losses to both USC and UCLA to begin their conference season. The Utes will try to return the favor this weekend.
Utah will look to freshman Tanaeya Boclair to provide a major lift for the team. Earlier this week Boclair was named Pac-12 Freshman of the Week after averaging 15.5 points a game in addition to 5.5 rebounds over two games last weekend.
The award is nice, but Boclair still feels she has a lot to work on, saying she needs to continue to drive down the lane and take open shots.
Bolcair also mentioned how the team is ready and anxious to get another shot at both USC and UCLA and how the lessons the Utes learned last weekend should be benefit them when they head to Los Angeles.
“I think this Arizona team definitely prepared us for pressure,” Boclair said. “I think we are going to go into next weekend ready to go full speed ahead and prevent them from getting them offense that they want.”
Utah head coach Anthony Levrets said the team is improving day-by-day and the players know it, so despite their poor record, the Utes haven’t lost hope or their will to win.
“We’re getting better and our kids feel it,” Levrets said. “When you feel some sort of progress you can continue to fight and compete. Our freshmen, they’re babies, but they’re getting better every time they play.”
Levrets mentioned how he feels as though it has been a lifetime since they last played the Los Angeles teams with all the injuries, sickness and other issues the team has had to face since then. But regardless of what the team has had to deal with throughout the season, he said the team will not change a thing.
“We are 1-9, we are going to do the same thing all the time,” Levrets said. “Look at our team on film [on Sunday and Monday]. Tuesday’s practice will be all about us, getting ourselves better.”
Levrets said when the team focuses on itself, it will be focusing on situations it faces in the game, as well as continuing to get the players more familiar with one another.
“[We need to work on] our individual skill development, our shooting the basketball, shots that we shoot in games,” Levrets said. “Trying to get our young kids more comfortable with the older kids, get healthy. We hope that our improvement during the week is enough to overcome us being on the road and the three point loss we had earlier.”
@kbrenneisen