Things haven’t always come easy to the Utah women’s basketball team this season, and that extended to the Utes having to wait Sunday to find out where they would be playing in the NCAA Tournament.
A bit of anxiety built up as Utah was a part of the final bracket revealed during ESPN’s selection show — the Utes will be a No. 5 seed and play No. 12 South Dakota State on Saturday in Spokane, Washington, in the first round.
“I was super anxious. I don’t think my legs stopped shaking,” Utah forward Alissa Pili said of waiting for Utah to hear its name called, as the school hosted a watch party in the Ken Garff Red Zone at Rice-Eccles Stadium.
The Utes and Jackrabbits will play at 8 p.m. MDT on Saturday, with the game televised on ESPNU. The victor will face the winner of No. 4 Gonzaga and No. 13 UC Irvine in the second round on Monday.
“It’s just a cool opportunity to get into the NCAA Tournament because I have been in situations where I didn’t have a postseason. So you know, I’m just super grateful that we have the chance to keep playing,” Pili said.
The Utes were holding out hope for a No. 4 seed themselves — that would have meant they would host a subregional in the first two rounds, like they did last year.
Instead, they’ll head to Spokane, Washington, to kick off the NCAA Tournament.
As part of the Regional 4 bracket, the Utes (22-10) would travel to Portland if they advance to the Sweet Sixteen.
“It’s a big moment. Even if you’ve been there, it’s still a big moment. But having played in it a couple years, I think just the experience gives you a little less nerves, a little less anxiousness where you can just go in and focus on competing.”
— Utah coach Lynne Roberts
Utah advanced to the Sweet Sixteen last season before losing to eventual national champion LSU, and the team has a goal to improve on that, with an Elite Eight appearance or better.
This is the third straight season that Utah has earned a spot in the NCAA Tournament. It’s also Utah’s 20th appearance in the NCAA Tournament — the school has a 12-19 record all-time.
“It’s a big moment. Even if you’ve been there, it’s still a big moment. But having played in it a couple years, I think just the experience gives you a little less nerves, a little less anxiousness where you can just go in and focus on competing,” Utah coach Lynne Roberts said.
South Dakota State (27-5) won The Summit League’s regular-season championship with a perfect 16-0 league record, then won the conference’s automatic NCAA bid by beating three teams in the conference tournament by an average of 13 points.
This will be South Dakota State’s 12th NCAA Tournament appearance in 16 seasons of eligibility.
“South Dakota State, I have a ton of respect for. They’re good. They’re really good,” Roberts said. “I was just looking at their schedule, I don’t think they’ve lost in 20 games or something like that. They’re always the Summit League champs and always a really hard out. So we’ve got our hands full.”
Gonzaga, which earned its highest seed in school history, will host first- and second-round games at McCarthey Athletic Center.
The Zags are making their seventh NCAA Tournament appearance.
UC Irvine, which played in the WNIT the past two seasons, is making its first NCAA Tournament appearance since 1995.
“They love basketball in Spokane, so I know if we’re fortunate to win the first game and play Gonzaga, it will be packed,” Roberts said. “They are women’s basketball, basketball junkies up there, so that will be a good environment for our players.”
This is the first time Utah has made three straight NCAA Tournament appearances since doing so in 1996, 1997 and 1998.
Two years ago, Utah also traveled to start the tournament. The Utes beat Arkansas in their first-round game before falling to host Texas in Austin.
Several players from that squad remain — Jenna Johnson and Kennady McQueen started in the NCAAs that season, while Ines Vieira, Dasia Young and Issy Palmer came off the bench.
Those NCAA experiences from the past two seasons should help Utah know what to expect when they hit the floor this weekend.
“I think it helps a lot. Playing at Texas, that was one of the first times I really had that experience of just like loud gyms cheering against you,” Johnson said. “So just having that and then also just every weekend in the Pac 12, we go to these packed gyms and there’s just 10,000, 15,000 people cheering against us, so I think that just prepared us.
“Gonzaga gets great attendance and I think we’re ready for that.”
After two and a half months of playing in the competitive — and exhausting — Pac-12, there were some smiles about the prospects of playing teams less familiar with Roberts’ squad.
“It feels great. It’s super fun just to get a different look, especially when we’ve been playing Pac-12 teams for so long and we know each other so well,” Pili said.
“So just to be able to play a different team and a different style and somebody who doesn’t know us, it kind of opens up our game and lets us do what we’re good at without having to do so many critiques and things like that. So it’ll be fun.”
The Pac-12 is well-represented in the NCAA field. There are seven conference teams in the tournament: USC earned a No. 1 seed, while UCLA and Stanford are No. 2 seeds, Oregon State is a No. 3 seed, Colorado is a No. 5 seed and Arizona is a No. 11 seed.
While it’s not in Salt Lake City, playing in the west potentially through the first two weekends — if they can survive and advance — is enticing for the Utes.
“I mean, obviously we’d prefer to be in Salt Lake but Spokane is not too far away, so it’d be nice hopefully a lot of people can travel from Utah and come and support us, then being in the Portland region to hopefully getting there and just getting you to have a lot of hometown fans with us,” Johnson said.