An early weekend for Utah comes in the form of its final regular season matchups against Washington and Washington State, respectively. Following their loss to Stanford last Sunday, the Utes look to make up some ground in the conference standings against the team currently slotted ahead of them in the Pac-12, the Washington Huskies.
The Huskies are carried by junior guard Kelsey Plum, who is the Pac-12 leading scorer and third-best in the nation, averaging 26.8 points per game. But while the Huskies’ fourth-best conference offense begins with Plum, it doesn’t end with her.
“Its not just her,” said Utes head coach Lynne Roberts. “They have five players on the floor that can all score. They just try to outscore you, and they’re good at it.”
In Utah’s last matchup with the Huskies, an 88-83 win in the Huntsman Center last January, Plum dropped a hefty 35 points. But the Utes made her work for it, as the Poway, Calif. native shot just 9-for-25 from the floor. While UW’s offense flows through Plum, the high-scoring offensive system creates opportunities for Washington’s front court trio of Chantel Osahor, Katie Collier and Talia Walton.
While Collier makes her living around the basket, blocking shots, snagging rebounds and being the outlet along the baseline for Plum’s drive and kicks, Osahor and Walton both have the ability to stretch defenses and punish opponents from behind the three-point line. Osahor and Collier hover around the 35 percent mark from deep, a percentage too good not to guard.
But as one spots up behind the line and the other pops after setting a screen for the slashing Plum, opposing defenses are forced to cover a lot of ground and ultimately decide who to pay the most attention to.
“We knew coming into [that] game knowing [Plum’s] going to get her points,” said Utah wing Katie Kuklok. “Either way we have it, she’s going to score. So our mentality was to attack and answer, so if they scored to come down and score right back.”
Naturally, the decision defenses settle on is to throw the kitchen sink at Plum, get the ball out of her hands and force another Husky to make a play. Utah has the personnel to make that happen against the Huskies with a guard line composed of Dani Rodriguez and Malia Nawahine that doesn’t give up much size to the 5-foot-8 Plum and has proven to be successful against other ball-dominant guards this season.
Where the Utes will need to focus defensively is behind the three-point line — who gets the ball there and with how much space. In the last matchup, Osahor burned Utah for 18 points, spotting up behind the arc for three of her eight shot attempts, knocking down two of those. Walton was less effective for the Huskies, making just one deep ball. However, she took seven three-point shots for the game.
As has been the case for Utah all season long, the team’s defense hinges on Potter’s ability to stay active around the rim and keep out of foul trouble. That will be easier said than done for the Canadian native as Washington plays a downhill offense, attacking the basket posession after posession.
Tune in this Thursday night as the Utes try for the sweep of Washington at 8 p.m. MST.
@westinjay