Utah finished the regular season ranked #3 by the AP voters. In itself, I found that rather shocking, because I thought they’d never vote Utah ahead of Stanford if the decision were close.
The Utes’ #3 rank makes the following much, much easier to write. When the team was outside the top 25, it almost surely comes across like the wishful thinking of a fan. While they bubbled up from the 20’s to the teens and for a long while around #8, it’s more like touting a dark horse.
But at #3, Utah has to be regarded as a genuine candidate to win the whole thing, and this doesn’t sound very far-fetched: At times, they are — to use a word that’s been cheapened by overuse — unstoppable.
If you’ve watched Utah, you might agree. The Palmer-Kneepkens-Johnson-McQueen-Pili group can all do two things: 1) shoot threes, and 2) finish around the basket.
Having one player capable of generating threats near and far makes it hard for the defense to hold together. But FIVE?! Coach VanDerveer says this makes Utah *the* hardest team to prepare for.
Among that group of five, Alissa Pili has the most power to supplement the shooting.
I heard a Pac-12 Network person say about Alissa Pili that “it’s not fair”. “Unfair” is how I often think of Pili, so it was good of the TV person to open the door for me to say it in print. She can shoot from distance, midrange, and close, while she’s also mobile, big, and strong.
The crazy thing about Pili is that she’s more adept at one thing than any player I’ve ever seen: Creating a shot when trapped under the basket. Picture concentric circles on the floor, with the hoop as the circle nearest the center. It’s impossible to attempt a field goal from that circle under the hoop, which is why we call it “trapped under the basket”.
Scorers cultivate the feel for English on the ball when they’re near the basket. Done well, the spin off the backboard or on the rim steers the ball toward the center of the goal. The closer one is to the concentric circle under the hoop, the greater the spin has to be.
People say some fortunate attempts had “shooter’s roll”, and about fortune, they say it’s the product of good design. All practiced players have some touch for this — Pili marshals the most.
I prefer not to write more than a couple of paragraphs about one basketball player. One baseball player, sure — because that game best rewards individual production. Writing about one basketball player, it *isn’t* writing about the group of five, though it’s the game that depends most on concerted effort. Pili, however, has that individual skill in remarkable measure.
I reckon it’s the various forms of pool and billiards that most require that skill, and those are individual events, right?