Utah’s reward for knocking out the Princeton Tigers is a round-of-16 game with the Louisiana State University Tigers. Say the Utes lose; what’s the verdict?
Around the turn of the ’10s, two Pacific Tigers (Did I ever imagine there’d come a time when I couldn’t remember exact dates and faces, but I’d still be covering Coach Roberts’ teams? No.) and I were talking about where we stood at the time. I asked what the team had been aiming for since November.
We can’t tell you, said one. We set a team goal at the start of the season, and we keep it a secret. We don’t even tell our families.
“We can’t tell Frisco!?” said the other.
I took a couple steps backward. “If it’s that secret, I don’t wanna know,” I said.
Ever since, I take an annual guess at Roberts’ teams’ start-of-season goals. It’s easier when the teams are good. This season, for instance, there isn’t much room for improvement — the Utes set out to 1) win the Pac-12 tournament, or 2) advance past the round of 32.
All things considered, achieving no. 2 above might’ve been something to shoot for in November, but if they bow out today, it’s a disappointment. The team didn’t advance as far in the conference tournament as they did in 2022, and they spent about two months at #8 or better in the AP poll, so the nation is rather expecting Utah to get past LSU.
Some pundits said Utah’s scrappy win against Princeton suggest they’re capable of taking the next step to greatness, as if winning so uncharacteristically is a foretelling. I’ll buy that, in theory — chessplayers reach new plateaus after learning to win in new ways, and it always looks promising when a team that relies on pitching and defense wins whacks a couple of three-run homers to win 6-1.
Nobody’s giving Colorado much of a chance against Iowa, less for UCLA vs. South Carolina. Colorado has as good a shot against Iowa as anyone — if you think the Hawkeyes go as Caitlin Clark goes, the Buffaloes are well equipped for that, with an abundance of defensive options in the backcourt (while I’m on the subject of Colorado, did Corosdale and Brown leave Oregon State for Duke thinking they’d play more?).
As long as UCLA makes complete stops, they can beat anyone.