The Utah women’s basketball team is gearing up to take on the Wolverines from Utah Valley University on Saturday, Nov. 19. The Utes started the season solidly, garnering two 10 point victories against Montana State and Fresno State. Head coach Lynne Roberts spoke recently at a weekly press conference about her team’s recent success.
“It’s good to be back home,” Roberts said. “We got back from Fresno State at about 1 a.m. and picked up a 10 point win. It’s always good when you can pick up a win on the road, especially in November. We’re making improvements, and we still have a way to go, but we’re getting better, and we’ll make those improvements.”
The Utes beat Fresno State this past Tuesday night 65-55. Senior wing Paige Crozon scored 12 points and recorded 10 rebounds for her first double-double of the season. The Utes also had strong performances from junior wing Tanaeya Boclair, who led the team in scoring with 16 points, and junior forward Emily Potter, who scored 15 points, and she added eight rebounds and four blocks.
While her team is undefeated through the first two games of the season, Roberts said her team still has a lot of work to do.
“We need to play with a lot of energy. We kind of lacked that against Montana State so I challenged the players to fix that,” Roberts said. “We needed to get better at rebounding, and I think we did okay with those two things against Fresno State. That’s great, but okay won’t get the job done against Pac-12 competition. We didn’t really shoot the ball very well, but we took good shots and our energy was tremendously improved.”
While the Utes won their first two games this season, shooting remains a problem. In their first game against Montana State, the Utes shot 34.5 percent from the field, while going 4-of-17 from deep, equaling a 23.5 percent shooting percentage. In their most recent victory against the Bulldogs, the ladies from the Rocky Mountains fared a little better, shooting 39.5 percent from the field. But their long ball is still off, as they went 5-of-22 from downtown.
But the Utes may get something of a reprieve against the Wolverines. Currently, Utah Valley has a record of 0-2, although their most recent loss came by three points against Weber State. In their first loss of the year, against BYU, the Wolverines didn’t score a single basket in the second half.
Some bright spots for the Utes this season have been several of their upperclassmen. Emily Potter has had a solid start for the 2016-17 season, and she is averaging 18 points and nine rebounds a game, while shooting more than 60 percent from the field in the first two games of the year. Senior wing Paige Crozon and junior wing Tanaeya Boclair are both shooting a respectable 38 percent from beyond the arc.
The game will begin at 5 p.m. at the Huntsman center.
@JaredWalch