Last weekend couldn’t have gone much better for the No. 16 Utah women’s basketball team.
The Utes bumped their winning streak up to three games by beating a pair of top 10 teams — No. 6 USC and No. 2 UCLA — and in the process re-established themselves as a contender in the Pac-12 race after a rough stretch.
Even with the historic home stretch — the No. 2 Bruins are the highest-ranked team the Utes have beaten in program history — coach Lynne Roberts and her team are determined to keep fighting for larger goals and looking ahead, not behind.
Up next for Utah (14-5, 4-3 Pac-12) is a two-game road swing to visit Oregon and No. 25 Oregon State this weekend.
“I think we’re coming off one of the best weekends ever and we cannot let our guard down. That’s what I just told the team,” Roberts said Wednesday, before her team traveled to the Pacific Northwest.
“Oregon is having not a typical year for Oregon, but they’re still good, they still have McDonald’s all-Americans on their team. They’ve just lost some of their depth with injuries. So we’ve got to be ready to go. It’s hard to win on the road. Oregon State’s playing really well right now.”
Forward Dasia Young, who hit a season-high four 3-pointers in Utah’s win over UCLA, stressed the importance of drowning out the outside noise — the media, the polls, etc. — and just playing hard because “obsession always beats talent.”
“If we’re obsessed with just playing hard and working and just trying our hardest, we’re going to come up with the win,” Young said. “So just trusting each other, keep riding this momentum and not settling and being okay with where we’re at now because we have so many more games to go.”
First up is Oregon (11-9, 2-5 Pac-12), a team that’s currently near the bottom of the league standings but can pose some challenges — former McDonald’s All-American post player Grace VanSlooten leads the Ducks and is averaging 15.4 points and 7.9 rebounds per game.
The Ducks will host the Utes on Friday night (8 p.m. MST, Pac-12 Network).
Oregon beat Arizona one week after the Utes fell to the Wildcats on the road during Utah’s 1-3 start to conference play, just one example of the competitiveness from top to bottom in the Pac-12.
The victory over UCLA moved Utah, the preseason favorite to win the conference, over .500 for the first time in league play, with the conference midseason point quickly approaching.
Not only were the victories over USC and UCLA signature wins for Utah’s NCAA resume, they provided valuable experience in closing out games, not long after Utah lost to Arizona and Stanford in heartbreaking, one-possession games.
“This weekend was definitely good for our confidence, knowing that we’ve been in those tight games but also knowing we can close them out,” said Utah guard Maty Wilke. “But I think we’re only as good as our next game, so using that to keep going, still remembering what it felt like to lose those five games, I think will propel us and just staying together, staying hungry.”
“A lot of teams could take last weekend and be like, ‘oh that was great,’ but we have bigger goals. We knew we can compete with those teams, so it’s kind of stay steady, neutral thinking about it, not trying to get too high. We’re only as good as our next game.” — Utah guard Maty Wilke
Wilke averaged 11.7 points and 2.8 3-pointers per game while shooting 50% from the field over Utah’s four-game home stand, her most successful stretch thus far as a Ute.
The sophomore guard transfer from Wisconsin, though, noted that Utah, one year removed from making the Sweet Sixteen, has bigger goals this March and needs to keep building towards that.
“A lot of teams could take last weekend and be like, ‘oh that was great,’ but we have bigger goals,” she said. “We knew we can compete with those teams, so it’s kind of stay steady, neutral thinking about it, not trying to get too high. We’re only as good as our next game.”
The Utes are also anticipating giving more playing time to senior guard Issy Palmer when they face the Ducks and Oregon State (15-3, 4-3 Pac-12), an up-and-coming team that finds itself in the thick of the Pac-12 race.
Palmer returned to action last week against the Trojans and Bruins after missing two-plus months due to an undisclosed injury, and she played 21 total minutes while accounting for 6 points, five assists and four turnovers over the two games.
“We’re going to need her. It’s another scoring guard. It’s just getting the cobwebs off, getting the sea legs back,” Roberts said. “She’ll be good to go. She’s a senior. She wants to be out there. And we’re going to need her.”
The coach emphasized that the team needs to stay sharp as it returns to the road for a four-game that includes visits to Washington and Washington State next week, otherwise some of the earlier struggles could return.
“We’re not relaxing, and it’s my job to make sure our team doesn’t do that. Had to get on them a little bit today, but it’s not gonna be easy. It never is,” Roberts said.
