Utah looked like it had a message for the Big 12 on Wednesday night — don’t forget about us.
After the Utes lost three of their last four games — all against teams ranked in the most recent Associated Press top 25 rankings — Utah came out and overwhelmed visiting Kansas 79-61 at the Huntsman Center on Wednesday.
The night included a triple-double chase for two of the Utes’ veteran stars as well.
“I’m really proud of our focus the last couple of days in terms of executing what we needed to to start the game,” Utah coach Gavin Petersen said. “That just got us playing freely. And then, credit to Kansas, they settled in and they just kept competing and kept being physical and stayed all the way to the bitter end.”
3 takeaways
Utah took control early and never let up. The Utes, who had dealt with a few poor starts over the past two weeks against ranked teams like Kansas State and TCU, didn’t suffer from that ailment against Kansas.
This time, the Utes were the ones getting out to a strong start, going up 12-0 through the game’s first 3 1/2 minutes.
“I feel like we had a difficult week in Texas and some losses that maybe we felt like we didn’t play our best,” Utah’s Jenna Johnson said. “So just these last few days, we’ve just been trying to focus on us and get back to Utah basketball and come out with good energy tonight, playing at home again, and I feel like we did a good job of that tonight.”
Utah made 8 of 12 field goals in the first quarter, with five of those coming from 3-point range.
Gianna Kneepkens more than doubled the Jayhawks in points during the first quarter — she had 12 points after the game’s first 10 minutes, while Kansas was trailing 21-5.
The Jayhawks made just 2 of 12 field goals in the first period.
“I thought they played with tremendous pace, really executed at a high level, and we didn’t provide near enough resistance to throw off any timing whatsoever,” said Kansas coach Brandon Schneider.
“Definitely credit to Utah for their execution, but I would like for us to put out a little bit more resistance.”
Veterans Gianna Kneepkens and Jenna Johnson carried the team effort. Utah did a good job moving the ball and finding open teammates, a big reason why the Utes shot 50.8% from the floor.
Kneepkens and Johnson were the sparks behind the Utah effort.
At the half, they were both on triple-double watch — Kneepkens put up 19 points, seven rebounds and six assists in the first half, while Johnson had seven points, eight rebounds and five assists.
The second half basically turned into watching whether or not the two could seriously join Shona Thorburn as the only Utes to record a triple-double in program history.
Thorburn’s came in 2006, when Utah beat BYU in the MWC basketball tournament championship that season. Thorburn had 15 points, 10 rebounds and 11 assists in that game.
Both players ended up short of the milestone, though things would have gotten interesting if Maty Wilke had made a 3-point attempt with 3:49 remaining off a pass from Kneepkens.
Moments later, though, she subbed out for the night, ending the drama.
Still, Kneepkens ended up with a career-high 30 points, along with 10 rebounds and eight assists.
“Credit to my teammates for finding me. I was just trying to find the gaps, and my teammates found me,” Kneepkens said. “We prepared super well, so we kind of knew what they were getting into. I was also able to find passes to my teammates that they were able to finish.”
That’s the third time in Kneepken’s illustrious career she has notched a double-double.
It’s the second time this season that Kneepkens has stacked back-to-back games of 20-plus points. In Utah’s 71-63 loss at TCU last Thursday, Kneepkens scored a team-high 26 points.
Johnson, who’s had some offensive struggles in recent weeks, scored on a pair of early layups and ended up with 13 points, nine rebounds and seven assists.
She was an efficient 5 of 6 from the floor and made a pair of 3-pointers.
It was Johnson’s first game scoring in double-digits since the Utes’ win over No. 3 Notre Dame two days after Thanksgiving.
“I was just focusing on being aggressive tonight. I feel like that’s something I missed a little bit these last few weeks, so (my focus was) just kind of going in with that mentality and then controlling the controllables when it comes to rebounding and stuff,” Johnson said.
“I felt like I got in a rhythm just getting some boards early on, and then got a couple of easy layups that gave me confidence to shoot, and things just kind of went from there.”
Mayè Tourè also had a solid night, finishing with 14 points on 6 of 12 shooting, with two rebounds and an assist.
Let’s talk about some other wild stats. The Utes have a reputation for sharing the ball, but they took it to another level Wednesday night.
Utah ended up with 27 assists on 30 made field goals, or 90% of those buckets. That included a perfect 16 assists on 16 made field goals during the first half.
The 27 assists tied a season high for the program that is 14th nationally, averaging 18.4 per game.
“Our preparation and our attention to the game plan and what makes us good is the fact that we do share the basketball,” Petersen said. “And I think we got back to that tonight, and I think they were prepared, but they also were very unselfish and just kept moving the ball.”
While Utah had a 35-25 rebounding advantage on the night, that 10-board edge came in the first quarter. The Utes ended the first period with a 12-2 rebounding advantage.
Utah had nine offensive rebounds to four for Kansas and ended with a 10-2 advantage in second-chance points.
The Utes also made 13 3-pointers, while the Jayhawks hit seven.
Kneepkens wasn’t the only player to score above 20, though — Kansas was paced by guard S’Mya Nichols, who had 26 points to lead the Jayhawks.
What’s next
The Utes (14-5, 5-3 Big 12) will wrap up the first half of Big 12 play with a game at BYU on Saturday (2:30 p.m., ESPNU).
The Cougars (10-8, 1-6 Big 12) lost at Iowa State on Wednesday night and are on a three-game losing streak.