When the No. 20 Utah women’s basketball team hosts No. 6 USC and No. 5 UCLA this weekend, there’s a possibility the Utes will have a key contributor return to the floor.
Senior guard Issy Palmer, who has missed the past two months with an undisclosed injury, was participating in drills during the portion of Tuesday’s practice open to the media.
“You have to guard Issy. She’s a great shooter, great attacker, playmaker, facilitator. It will really help our offense and get us back to what we were doing. It’s just one more person who knows our system really well, and defenses will have to respect her.” — Utah guard Kennady McQueen, on Issy Palmer
A school official confirmed to the Deseret News that Palmer was cleared to play earlier this week, another positive step toward her return.
Utah coach Lynne Roberts stopped short of saying exactly when Palmer would return to action — “We hope she’ll be back. We’re planning on it, but you never know,” she said Tuesday — while discussing what Palmer’s role could be when she is back on the court.
“I think she needs to get back in the swing, but she’ll play the point guard,” Roberts said. “Ines (Vieira) has secured the starting role. I think she’s done a tremendous job.
“Issy needs to get back out there and get comfortable and all those things, so I’m sure she’ll be on a minutes restriction. I don’t know what that is yet, but we’re just excited to have her back.”
When Palmer last played, the Utes still had Gianna Kneepkens, but the all-conference junior suffered a broken foot in December and was lost for the season.
With Palmer out, Vieira, a junior, has assumed the role of starting point guard and excelled. Vieira is eighth nationally in assists per game (6.4), 11th in assist-to-turnover ratio (2.87) and 21st in steals per game (2.88).
“She plays her tail off, never gets tired, never complains, never takes a possession off. That’s rare these days,” Roberts said of Vieira.
Palmer hasn’t played since the Utes’ third game, a loss at Baylor back on Nov. 14. While it’s a small sample size, Palmer improved upon her career averages during the Utes’ first three games of the season.
Before being sidelined, the 5-foot-9 guard was averaging career highs in points (14.0), assists (5.3) and rebounds (3.0), while shooting 57.1% from the field and 56.3% from 3-point range.
Utah junior guard Kennady McQueen is looking forward to getting an experienced leader like Palmer back on the court.
“You have to guard Issy. She’s a great shooter, great attacker, playmaker, facilitator,” McQueen said. “It will really help our offense and get us back to what we were doing. It’s just one more person who knows our system really well, and defenses will have to respect her.”
Palmer has gone through warmups the past two games, and if she comes back this weekend the coach isn’t worried about her return coming against a pair of top-10 teams.
“This is her fifth year, she’ll be fine. I don’t worry about that,” Roberts said. “She knows our offense. She’s been doing noncontact stuff for awhile. I don’t worry about that.”
The next few days will provide another tough pair of contests for Utah in the ultra-competitive Pac-12 — first is USC Friday (7 p.m. MST, Pac-12 Network), then UCLA on Monday (5 p.m., ESPN2).
The two teams are each 3-1 early in Pac-12 play and a combined 27-2 on the season — the only loss for both the Trojans and Bruins have come in their two matchups already this year.
“This year, it feels like everyone’s ranked (in the Pac-12). They come hard and fast,” Utah forward Jenna Johnson said.
USC is led by 18-year-old freshman JuJu Watkins. The 6-foot-2 guard is averaging 26.5 points per game (second nationally), while adding 7.5 rebounds, 3.6 assists, 2.4 steals and 1.9 blocks per contest.
The high-volume shooter is shooting 43.9% from the field and 38.9% from 3-point range. Watkins also gets to the free-throw line twice as often as her closest teammate and shoots 82.7% from the stripe.
“She’s kind of a three-level scorer. She’s very athletic, can finish around the basket, has a tremendous pullup,” Roberts said of Watkins.
“It’s hard to guard because she can get her shot off the dribble against anybody and then can knock down the 3 for a pretty solid percentage. She’s just tough in the open court, it’s hard to stop her. She gets to the free-throw line a lot.”
Roberts said the Utes will mix it up defensively in guarding the versatile Watkins, not relying on one player to match up with her all game.
“She’s definitely coming in with a lot of confidence and is very versatile, a very hard matchup,” said Johnson, one of the Utes’ top defenders. “It’s obviously going to be a team effort. No one person’s going to shut her down.”
This pair of games will be important for a 12-5 Utah team that is off to a 2-3 start to conference play — the Utes were in each of the losses late — but are coming off a 37-point win over California.
“We got a little frustrated, but instead of taking a step back, we just let it fuel us with an anger almost, in a way,” McQueen said, of the team’s effort against the Golden Bears.
“I was really proud of the way we played even in the close games we lost, I think every game we just keep getting better and show up in different ways we haven’t been.”
