The Utah women’s basketball team did not end the regular season the way it wanted to.
The Utes suffered an uncharacteristic home loss to Washington last Saturday, as Lynne Roberts’ normally hot-shooting squad struggled to find the bottom of the net.
While the loss left a bitter taste, it didn’t dampen the confidence Utah has that it can go on another strong postseason run like the Utes did last season in the NCAA Tournament, when they reached the Sweet Sixteen.
“Honestly, I think anyone can win this thing, particularly the top six seeds. Anyone can do it.”
— Utah coach Lynne Roberts
With the loss to the Huskies, Utah enters this week’s Pac-12 tournament as the No. 6 seed, with a first-round matchup against Arizona State on Wednesday night (9:30 p.m. MST, Pac-12 Network).
With the strength of the Pac-12 Conference — there are six teams ranked in the top 25 rankings — the road to the tournament championship will be a difficult one no matter the seed.
“I said this earlier today — you know the other teams so well, their players, their style, what their kryptonite is, and they know yours. It is absolutely a gauntlet and so I think that’s the toughest team, the team that can stay the freshest, the healthiest is going to be the one at the end,” Roberts said Tuesday.
“... Honestly, I think anyone can win this thing, particularly the top six seeds. Anyone can do it.”
Utah knows the difficulties of the Pac-12 tournament, which will be played at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.
Last year, the Utes tied for the Pac-12 regular-season championship but lost to eventual tournament champion Washington State in the quarterfinals.
Two years ago, Utah was the No. 6 seed and made it all the way to the Pac-12 tournament championship, where it lost to Stanford.
“It’s hard to play the first-round game. We experienced it two years ago, where we were the five or six seed and we made it to the championship and we played well until that fourth quarter and we, like, we just completely ran out of gas and lost to Stanford in that game,” Roberts said.
“You could do it and you can make it, but you’ve got to be the tougher team, more focused team, healthiest team.”
Up first for Utah is an Arizona State team that the Utes beat in Tempe earlier this year in their only regular-season matchup.
It was a grind-it-out contest, as Utah shot just 37.5% but held the Sun Devils to single-digit scoring in three of the game’s four quarters.
“They’re athletic. They’re driven by their guards. They’ve got a couple of kids that can really score off the dribble. It’s a game where we’ve got to be disciplined and not foul, be solid defensively and then get out and run,” Roberts said.
“I think we can score. We just got to make sure the game is clean on the defensive end, so that we can get stops and get out and go.”
If the Utes beat the Sun Devils, they would face No. 3 seed UCLA in Thursday’s quarterfinals.
Utah and UCLA split two games this season — the Utes beat the then-No. 2 Bruins in overtime in Salt Lake City in their first matchup, then UCLA blew out Utah by 30 when it visited Los Angeles two weeks ago.
“I don’t like how we played them last time we played them and I would love, having split during the regular season, I’d love a chance to play them understanding it would be really challenging,” Roberts said of UCLA.
“They’re big and they’re a complete team with every position on the floor, but I’d like a chance to play them again. But we got to take care of Arizona State first.”
For a veteran team like Utah, there’s a lot of experience to lean on heading into the postseason.
Alissa Pili may anchor the Utes with her 21 points and 6.4 rebounds per game, but others like Kennady McQueen, Jenna Johnson, Dasia Young and Ines Vieira have been around the past two years during Utah’s previous postseason appearances.
“The games where we really come out and make a statement is when we’re all playing together as one and the hard work and effort and urgency is there,” McQueen said.
“Every game that we’ve really played well and play to our potential, I feel like that’s what we consistently bring.”
Roberts, as is her nature, laid out the reality of playing in March, while expressing confidence her team is ready for the challenge.
“I feel like our team is in a good spot and if you can’t get motivated to play at your best — and that doesn’t mean you have to play perfectly but play at your best in terms of intensity, energy, focus, controlling the things you can control — then you don’t deserve to win. And I feel like our guys are in a good spot with that,” she said.