The No. 22 Utah women’s basketball team had to work hard for its lead over the first two and a half quarters against the Big 12’s last-place team, Houston, on Saturday afternoon at the Huntsman Center.
The Utes led 37-34, and things hadn’t come easy.
Behind a dominant day from Gianna Kneepkens and Maye Toure, though, Utah eventually broke away from the Cougars with an 8-0 run to end the third quarter, then outscored the visitors 24-8 in the fourth to turn the matchup into a 69-42 victory.
“Great bounceback win after a tough loss on Wednesday (against No. 12 Kansas State),” Utah coach Gavin Petersen said. “That’s life. We’ve got to be able to get back to the drawing boards and re-attack, and it took us a little while, but I am so proud of our effort.
“... We kind of got back to moving the ball and playing Utah basketball.”
3 takeaways
Maye Toure led the post dominance — and rebounding effort — for Utah. Toure had yet another brilliant day, as she finished with a game-high 22 points and 12 rebounds.
Toure shot 10 of 15 from the floor and had three offensive rebounds to go along with two assists and a block. She scored seven of Utah’s 15 first-quarter points, helping the Utes maintain an early edge before Houston fought its way back into the game.
Utah ended up with a 48-12 advantage in points in the paint.
Toure also played a key role in what ended up being the determining factor Saturday: The Utes dominated the boards, 56-26, and collected a season-high 19 offensive rebounds, leading to 12 second-chance points.
“It’s exhausting when you play defense. We knew with Utah, they either shoot in the first seven seconds or they shoot it under seven seconds, and so you’re going to play all those passes and guard all of that, and then the shot’s going to go up, and you have to rebound the basketball,” Houston coach Ronald Hughey said.
“But if you give up offensive rebounds, now you’ve got to do that all over again. Then you give up a second offensive rebound, you got to do it all over again, and so that’s the tiring part. And so again, you know, hats off to them.”
Toure, Reese Ross and Samantha Crispe led the Utah frontcourt with three offensive rebounds each. Guard Ines Vieira, though, came up with a team-high five, flying around the floor to help the Utes retain possession on several occasions.
“It’s a great tool for us to crash the boards, because we have great guards that can shoot the ball,” Toure said. “If we keep crashing hard — everyone, all the bigs and even the guards — we’re gonna have a lot of more opportunities to shoot 3s, and when we’re making them, it’s a great day for us.”
Houston’s defense made for a grind-it-out game for more than a half. Despite trailing by nine points after one quarter and never holding a lead in the matchup, Houston used a tireless effort to hold Utah’s offense in check for more than half of the game.
The Cougars trailed just 28-23 at halftime as the Utes shot under 40% in the first two quarters. Utah only made 2 of 12 3-pointers in the first half, compared to 4 of 5 for Houston.
That effort continued into the second half before Kneepkens and the Utes finally wore down the Cougars, who were playing their second game in Utah this week after falling at BYU on Wednesday.
Over the first three quarters, Houston only allowed the Utes to shoot 38% before the Utes made 11 of 15 (73.3%) in the final period.
“Extremely proud of the effort. We knew Houston was going to come in, and they’ve always played hard, and they always compete,” Petersen said. “That’s a credit to their coaching staff. Regardless of their record, they’re going to show up and give you their best shot.”
Utah began to pull away in the third, thanks to Gianna Kneepkens. The Utes were coming off a humbling 24-point home loss against No. 12 Kansas State, and for a large portion of Saturday’s game, they looked like they were still being impacted by that loss.
Junior sharpshooter Kneepkens, though, stepped in to finally put this one away.
She hit a layup to give Utah a 39-34 lead with 4:23 left in the third quarter, and then after a bucket by Brooke Walker, her 3-pointer just over a minute later gave the Utes their first double-digit lead of the day at 44-34.
Kneepkens ended up 15 points while shooting 6 of 13 from the floor and 3 of 6 from 3-point range. She also had nine rebounds and seven assists.
“I believe in myself, my teammates, that every shot is going in, so just staying consistent with that,” Kneepkens said.
The Utes held Houston to only 11.8% shooting in the fourth quarter as the game quickly got out of hand.
That gave Utah some valuable time to look at its guard depth, which is being challenged as Kennady McQueen misses time with a high ankle sprain.
Fellow guards Maty Wilke and Walker capitalized on their chances. Wilke, who filled McQueen’s spot in the starting lineup, had 11 points, four rebounds, three assists and a block while being aggressive on the offensive end, while the freshman Walker scored seven points and shot 3 of 6 from the floor.
“We all have the most confidence in them. We really think you saw Maty attack the basket and showed some confidence in the end, and then Brooke was shooting shots and she was open,” Kneepkens said. “That’s something we need, because off the bench, we don’t want to dip, and I thought they played great today.”
What’s next
After two games at the Huntsman Center this week, Utah will head back out on the road next week.
Up first is a Tuesday matchup at Baylor (6 p.m. MST, ESPN+), before the Utes play at No. 11 TCU on Friday (5:30 p.m. MST, ESPN+).