After a fruitless trip to the Pacific Northwest last weekend, in which the Utes fell to both Oregon and Oregon State, the Utes return to Salt Lake City this weekend for their final regular season home games in the Huntsman Center.
The Utes’ first opponent is Cal, a team who turned heads earlier in the year but have since floundered in the bottom half of the Pac-12 standings. The Golden Bears rank three games behind Utah in the conference standings at 3-11 in Pac-12 play, and will be looking for a redemption game of their own, having lost to the Utes in the Haas Pavilion earlier this year.
Utah head coach Lynne Roberts, however, doesn’t feel that last month’s win against Cal translates much to Friday’s contest.
“That game feels like a long time ago,” she said. “I don’t know that it helps us too much, in terms of pulling from it, other than that we know we can hang with them.”
Utah’s Jan. 10 matchup with Cal was their biggest win of the season at that point. The Golden Bears were ranked 21st in the nation and held a 19-point lead over the Utes heading into the fourth quarter. However, Utah showed its grit and battled back against Cal on its homecourt, escaping with the victory.
“We were down 19, and we should never have put ourselves in that situation to begin with,” Roberts continued. “I’m sure [Cal is] looking at that game and thinking, ‘How did we let that one slip away? We should have beaten those guys.’ I’m looking at that game and thinking, ‘How were we down 19? We shouldn’t have been in that situation.'”
For Utah, ensuring a win against Cal will mean containing the Golden Bears’ front court. The starting front court for Cal — Krisine Anigwe, Mikayla Cowling and Courtney Range — all stand 6-foot-2, or above. Anigwe, in her first year of college basketball, leads all Cal scorers with nearly 20 points per game. In addition to her scoring, the freshman forward out of Phoenix pulls down nine rebounds per game for Cal.
Utah will need its center, Emily Potter, to impose her size and and experience on the younger, smaller Anigwe. However, Potter has struggled to stay out of foul trouble in the last several games, and teams will surely be scouting her, instructing players to play her physically in hopes of drawing fouls.
As the regular season nears its close, the Utes are focused on capitalizing on their last two games in Salt Lake City. Despite the added emotion of senior night on Sunday, Utah wing Katie Kuklok cited a collective focus on closing out the season positively.
“Its going to be a tough game — they’re coming off of a win … But we definitely have to buy into the gameplan and really buckle down and get some wins to end out conference play,” Kuklok said.
Catch the Utes in the Huntsman Center at 6 p.m. MST this Friday.
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