Utah Women’s Basketball Independent

Sometimes you think of a good title for a piece. When Utah sophomore Lani White hit the transfer portal, I thought: “Lani, we hardly knew ye”, a play on the 1972 best-selling Kennedy memoir Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye.

I couldn’t think of much in support of the title, though.

If any of the 2023-24 Utes needed a change of scenery, it was Lani White. She and Ines Vieira faced sudden media and fan scrutiny in the absences of starters Gianna Kneepkens and Issy Palmer.

Vieira flourished, a candidate for the Pac-12 most improved player award. White shot 1-for-11 in the second game of the season, and that was while those two starters were still on their feet. She never regained the mojo that made her the most impressive of Utah’s 2022-23 freshmen. (I assumed Teya Sidberry transfered out at least partly for feeling pushed aside with White’s emergence, even if playing different positions on the floor! Sidberry had a fine year for Boston College, leading the Eagles in scoring and rebounding.)

I’ll hand it to the Huntsman Center crowds — they never turned on her, and she remained a fan favorite.

That’s been on my mind for days. Then Stanford’s Iriafen and half the Oregon State Beavers — Beers, most notably — entered the portal, and that, I’m sorry to say, is bigger news.

Among Atlantic Coast Conference observers, how many are sorely disappointed that Stanford signed the contract with Coach VanDerveer, Kiki Iriafen, and perhaps a fifth-year Cameron Brink, but the team that’s coming to play lost all three of them?

And if you’re a supporter of the West Coast Conference, might you feel a little jilted after half of Oregon State’s elite eight team jumped ship instead of joining you?

I called Coach Roberts to ask if she’d already talked to Raegan Beers, because, hey, problem solved! Who could possibly replace Alissa Pili as Utah’s inside threat? How about Raegan Beers!?

I giggled throughout the phone message. Coach Roberts might wonder what I thought was so funny. I thought it was comical that a suitably powerful scorer and rebounder so conveniently presented herself, and would not have been surprised if Beers’ first caller was Utah.

I thought Marquette’s Liza Karlen might be a good fit, but the prospect of Beers made me giddy. (Then there’s Oregon’s VanSlooten, thought I can’t remember her running the floor in an outstanding way. That might be because Oregon couldn’t make it a priority.)

And I wonder if Oregon State’s distance shooter Lily Hansford is also among Utah’s interests. On the rare possessions Hansford drove the ball instead of launching it, she was surprisingly good. I thought if the Utah program could cultivate Hansford’s attacking game the same way it transformed Alissa Pili, Hansford would be a good get.

The Pac-12 ended not with a bang, but a whimper.

It was possible for seven Pac-12 teams to reach the round of 8. Southern Cal and Oregon State succeeded, but were stopped there by UConn and South Carolina.

Except for #5 Colorado winning at #4 Iowa State, the Pac-12 won no up-pairings.

Since the Covid-abbreviated 2021 season — when Stanford and Arizona met in the national championship game — the theory was that the Pac-12 teams were better prepared for that NCAA tournament by playing multiple top-tier opponents during conference play.

The Pac-12 flag kept flying during this 2023-24 season, with six Pac-12 teams usually ranked among the top dozen in the country.

USC was knocked out in, technically speaking, an upset. Stanford was knocked out similarly. So was UCLA.

I think — in the big picture — this is great! The other Division 1 conferences caught up to the Pac-12, coinciding with the highest broadcast share in WCBB history.

The immediate general opinion following Gonzaga’s second-round win over Utah was that the Utes failed to execute on defense. I don’t think that gives enough credit to Gonzaga — I think Utah did execute its defense, but Gonzaga gradually outplayed it.

Associate head coach Gavin Petersen got off the bus to talk to me. I said our team followed his defensive instructions, but the home team just overcame it. “Those savvy 5th-year players can do that”, said Petersen.

At practice on the rest day, the Utes ran through a Gonzaga offensive set, preparing for when Brynna Maxwell would be releasing the ball quickly. Brynna can single-handedly shoot an opponent out of the McCarthey Center, and Utah kept her well under wraps — Maxwell was their 5th-leading scorer while the other Bulldogs shot 11-of-19 3FG.

Gonzaga made 9 3FG in a row: The last one tried in the 1st quarter, 5-for-5 in the 2nd quarter, plus 3 more to begin the 3rd. Gonzaga won the 2nd quarter 24-8, mostly attributed to a Utah defensive breakdown — again, I think the offense broke it down.

---

I loved the college district in Spokane.

Maybe because it was my only road trip all season. When I look back on the 2023-24 season, one of its worst aspects was watching most games on a laptop or phone.

A TV broadcast limits us to seeing what the directors in the trucks want us to see. If there’s anything you want to observe that’s off ball, forget about it.

The directors told me what to see, while the play-by-play and color broadcasters told me what they saw — never pausing for thought.

So it was good to visit Spokane, free to watch the games as I liked, then write about the games weeks later.

I got to see Gonzaga and Spokane during the day. With the off day between rounds one and two, I walked downtown Spokane, playing the geo-location game Ingress.

That day, the only task related to journalism was a media conference with players and coach, and watching the team practice.

I thought I mentioned last month that attending practice in March is different than it is in November. There are fewer surprises in March.

I had a minute with Utah director of basketball operations Kendall Rodriguez. Kendall is the only player in my experience to walk away from a media conference, and remind me that I was in this.

Pacific had just lost a Big West Conference tournament semifinal to a weaker team. That one hurt.

Coach and players met the press later, while I was face down in the laptop. They left the dais, and while walking past me, Kendall nudged me.

It was the reassuring nudge that one expects from a championship-bound captain. Get your face out of the laptop, and let’s get ready for the trips home.

I said to Kendall: “Coach told me to walk. She said: ‘Are you getting outside? Are you walking?’. I said: ‘Am I what?’. Coach said: ‘You’re one of the most observant people I know. Go out for a walk, and write down what you see. It’s not chess or basketball, but you can manage’.”

I’ve been walking 5-10 kilometers per day since then, I said. I wanted the pedometer to hit 300, in case Coach asks.

Walk around the parking lot a couple times, the director of basketball operations said.

That was how I discovered Gonzaga’s campus is special, while tacking kilometers on the pedometer within the game Ingress.

Ingress and its younger cousin Pokemon Go put your GPS location in an alternate reality, in which objects around your neighborhood are significant places and things.

The player walks around town or state, staking claim to painted trash cans, or outdoor memorial benches. Then links those objects to form triangular groups.

So you’re forced to look around while you walk, and see details in the landscape that you might have otherwhise overlooked.

Here’s the funny part: There’s a cluster of game objects surrounding Gonzaga’s athletic fields, and the McCarthey Center. I could make a link in the game from places inside the building, forming a triangle that encompassed the media workroom, and a baseline inside The Kennel.

McCarthey Center staff thought I kept getting lost inside their building. I was managing the game triangle while walking the halls. So I had to walk through Gonzaga’s basketball hall of NBA and WNBA players, several times.

Each player is represented by a pro jersey framed inside a Gonzaga action shot. It’s a narrow hallway, lit like a museum. It’s dazzling, and that was before someone left the door open to the trophy room.

I blanketed that part of the campus in blue triangles, so I had to circle Gonzaga’s performing arts center, basketball arena, baseball diamond, and law school. There’s a river running through the campus.

My chess friend went to high school in Spokane Valley. He said the amazing thing about that river is that it’s unpolluted.

In downtown Spokane, there’s a five way traffic intersection that goes around a statue of Lincoln.

Yeah, so I loved an afternoon as a tourist in Spokane.

I don’t see myself visiting Coeur d’Alene, ever.

A rationale for Edwards’ offensive foul call with 3 seconds left in the Iowa-UConn semi-final:

If you were facing Edwards — I’m assuming the referee was — you see her eyes move in the direction of the physical contact.

From that point of view, I think he saw three lines of force on a collision course: Marshall, Edwards’ hip, and Edwards’ eyes. He envisioned contact at the point of the three-way convergence — a mistaken call, based on the geometry of the motion.

I said Spokane, Wash., was a fine place to visit, with a downtown full of historical markers, and new corporate logos on the faces of old buildings.

So was Boise, Idaho. Boise has the best wine bar I ever visited twice, and I won the 2014 Idaho Open chess tournament there.

East of Spokane, and north of Boise, there’s Coeur d’Alene. In northern Idaho, where Confederate flags fly over Nazi enclaves.

Racists in Coeur d’Alene verbally assaulted, and revved their truck engines in earshot of, the University of Utah women’s basketball team and associates.

The Utah contingent was boarded in Idaho, 35 miles from the basketball tournament site, because there was a lack of hotel space in Washington.

There was no lack of hotel space, only nice hotel space — I stayed in a Wyndham by Ramada, a cheap hotel 1.5 miles from Gonzaga.

Maybe you don’t see this in a resort hotel (the Utah team’s lodging in Coeur d’Alene is called a resort): At the end of a narrow hotel hallway, a door opens, and a pair of pugs tears ass out the door, down the hall. Followed by a dude in his underwear and socks.

I’m at room 230 two doors down, and the pugs are past me in an instant, the underwear guy in pursuit.

I thought: They’re gone. This floor is designed like a pug racetrack.

But the pugs were distracted by people to meet at the elevators, and the fellow grabbed them. He walks past me again on the way back. “I thought they were gone”, I said.

“I’m too fast for them”, he said.

Which I don’t think is true. If not for the pugs’ friendly dispositions, they could still be running ahead of the guy.

At the downtown Spokane Wyndham by Ramada, the wi-fi was unuseable, but there were no Nazis gunning truck engines.

I think there’s an implied threat of extreme violence when racist assholes make noise with their vehicles, directed at Black people. I also think there’s a large gtheirroup of people who don’t see the implication, upon which these assholes rely.

The Pac-12 ended not with a bang, but a whimper.

It was possible for seven Pac-12 teams to reach the round of 8. Southern Cal and Oregon State succeeded, but were stopped there by UConn and South Carolina.

Except for #5 Colorado winning at #4 Iowa State, the Pac-12 won no up-pairings.

Since the Covid-abbreviated 2021 season — when Stanford and Arizona met in the national championship game — the theory was that the Pac-12 teams were better prepared for that NCAA tournament by playing multiple top-tier opponents during conference play.

The Pac-12 flag kept flying during this 2023-24 season, with six Pac-12 teams usually ranked among the top dozen in the country.

USC was knocked out in, technically speaking, an upset. Stanford was knocked out similarly. So was UCLA.

I think — in the big picture — this is great! The other Division 1 conferences caught up to the Pac-12, coinciding with the highest broadcast share in WCBB history.

The immediate general opinion following Gonzaga’s second-round win over Utah was that the Utes failed to execute on defense. I don’t think that gives enough credit to Gonzaga — I think Utah did execute its defense, but Gonzaga gradually outplayed it.

Associate head coach Gavin Petersen got off the bus to talk to me. I said our team followed his defensive instructions, but the home team just overcame it. “Those savvy 5th-year players can do that”, said Petersen.

At practice on the rest day, the Utes ran through a Gonzaga offensive set, preparing for when Brynna Maxwell would be releasing the ball quickly. Brynna can single-handedly shoot an opponent out of the McCarthey Center, and Utah kept her well under wraps — Maxwell was their 5th-leading scorer while the other Bulldogs shot 11-of-19 3FG.

Gonzaga made 9 3FG in a row: The last one tried in the 1st quarter, 5-for-5 in the 2nd quarter, plus 3 more to begin the 3rd. Gonzaga won the 2nd quarter 24-8, mostly attributed to a Utah defensive breakdown — again, I think the offense broke it down.

---

I loved the college district in Spokane.

Maybe because it was my only road trip all season. When I look back on the 2023-24 season, one of its worst aspects was watching most games on a laptop or phone.

A TV broadcast limits us to seeing what the directors in the trucks want us to see. If there’s anything you want to observe that’s off ball, forget about it.

The directors told me what to see, while the play-by-play and color broadcasters told me what they saw — never pausing for thought.

So it was good to visit Spokane, free to watch the games as I liked, then write about the games weeks later.

I got to see Gonzaga and Spokane during the day. With the off day between rounds one and two, I walked downtown Spokane, playing the geo-location game Ingress.

That day, the only task related to journalism was a media conference with players and coach, and watching the team practice.

I thought I mentioned last month that attending practice in March is different than it is in November. There are fewer surprises in March.

I had a minute with Utah director of basketball operations Kendall Rodriguez. Kendall is the only player in my experience to walk away from a media conference, and remind me that I was in this.

Pacific had just lost a Big West Conference tournament semifinal to a weaker team. That one hurt.

Coach and players met the press later, while I was face down in the laptop. They left the dais, and while walking past me, Kendall nudged me.

It was the reassuring nudge that one expects from a championship-bound captain. Get your face out of the laptop, and let’s get ready for the trips home.

I said to Kendall: “Coach told me to walk. She said: ‘Are you getting outside? Are you walking?’. I said: ‘Am I what?’. Coach said: ‘You’re one of the most observant people I know. Go out for a walk, and write down what you see. It’s not chess or basketball, but you can manage’.”

I’ve been walking 5-10 kilometers per day since then, I said. I wanted the pedometer to hit 300, in case Coach asks.

Walk around the parking lot a couple times, the director of basketball operations said.

That was how I discovered Gonzaga’s campus is special, while tacking kilometers on the pedometer within the game Ingress.

Ingress and its younger cousin Pokemon Go put your GPS location in an alternate reality, in which objects around your neighborhood are significant places and things.

The player walks around town or state, staking claim to painted trash cans, or outdoor memorial benches. Then links those objects to form triangular groups.

So you’re forced to look around while you walk, and see details in the landscape that you might have otherwhise overlooked.

Here’s the funny part: There’s a cluster of game objects surrounding Gonzaga’s athletic fields, and the McCarthey Center. I could make a link in the game from places inside the building, forming a triangle that encompassed the media workroom, and a baseline inside The Kennel.

McCarthey Center staff thought I kept getting lost inside their building. I was managing the game triangle while walking the halls. So I had to walk through Gonzaga’s basketball hall of NBA and WNBA players, several times.

Each player is represented by a pro jersey framed inside a Gonzaga action shot. It’s a narrow hallway, lit like a museum. It’s dazzling, and that was before someone left the door open to the trophy room.

I blanketed that part of the campus in blue triangles, so I had to circle Gonzaga’s performing arts center, basketball arena, baseball diamond, and law school. There’s a river running through the campus.

My chess friend went to high school in Spokane Valley. He said the amazing thing about that river is that it’s unpolluted.

In downtown Spokane, there’s a five way traffic intersection that goes around a statue of Lincoln.

Yeah, so I loved an afternoon as a tourist in Spokane.

I don’t see myself visiting Coeur d’Alene, ever.

The McCarthey Center is sold out. 5990 people here to see Gonzaga complete a sweep of its home games, and advance. Plus a 10-person group that I think is Kennady McQueen’s family.

This region must be stuffed with people who think it’s natural to shoot colored people in the name of national security and oil profits. Two blocks away, there’s a little strip with a good breakfast stop and a Marines recruitment office. Two other storefronts (one a cookie baker, and I gladly would’ve patronized that) are closed.

A ROTC unit just marched in formation after the national anthem. I didn’t see them salute the cross adorning the highest corner of the building. Few groups annoy me as much as white people who think God wants them to behave like assholes. John Stockton, that means you.

How about that Brooke Demetre!? Stanford makes a habit of recruiting players who go unnoticed until they rescue Stanford in an elimination game. Near the end of the 2021 tournament, I couldn’t remember if I’d seen Ashten Prechtel before. Who’s this kid making a flock of 3-pointers to save their season?

A reporter said about Stanford’s tense (I don’t think either team led by more than 5 until the end) overtime win against Iowa State last night that Coach VanDerveer showed more emotion at the end of that game than at any other in memory. (I think this might be another hint that Coach VanDerveer is prepared to step aside, because someone has to coach WNBA San Francisco.)

Good for Stanford surviving, because I want Utah to get another shot at the Cardinal.

---

I’ve logged many miles, but I don’t consider myself a traveler. From the inside, chess tournament venues and basketball arenas look like the others.

I could make a travel guide to basketball gyms.

The Jenny Craig Pavilion at the University of San Diego is decorated in a Southwestern motif. It imparts the desired feel, but it’s unobtrusive to the business of indoor sports. Recommended for lovers of Southwestern decor, when the Toreros are a good basketball team.

The city of Portland offers basketball travelers a varied look. The University of Portland is on a bluff overlooking water. If I ever got lost up there, goodbye forever. Inside the Chiles Center, everything that can be painted purple is painted purple. Portland State University, on the other, is nestled within the concrete jungle downtown. At Portland State, the athletics and academics are under the same roof, so if you can’t find the gym, it can be trying to find anyone who knows where it is. Then there’s Powell’s World of Books, a bookstore so renowned that basketball travelers do, in fact, schedule trips to Portland in season, carrying empty suitcases.

I’ve never built a fire, but I’ve seen it done on screen, where one might stuff kindling into the base of a pyramid made of sticks. That’s the Thunderdome at the University of California at Santa Barbara. It’s supposed to look like a dome, but whenever I look toward the ceiling, I feel like the place could ignite. UCSB kids suck. Avoid. (Unless sophomore guard Kathleen Hutchens is loving her education there, I’d be in favor of her entering the portal to land at a place I’d like to visit.)

---

I’ve never before been this tired on a basketball trip. Unsteady on my feet, reaching to hold things for balance.

My chess teacher once said: “Someday you’re going to go too far for a basketball game.” It crossed my mind that this could be the trip too far.

I overhear conversations in the media room in which it’s said that since Ejim and Pili are both unstoppable, it’ll be the guard play that settles this one. Gonzaga’s guard rotation is three grad students plus one senior. Sheesh, I think.

In 12 hours, I’ll be back at the Oakland airport. From there, I Lyft home to get my car, and continue south to teach a chess lesson. I never schedule enough rest, but that time is expensive.

At 4 a.m., I still have two games I want to watch.

Here’s why I don’t relish #5 Utah’s chances against #4 Gonzaga Monday night:

Gonzaga has shorter lapses.

The people who use “chess match” as a metaphor for A/B models think chess is an “I move, you move” thing comparable to “relief pitcher in, pinch hitter up”.

Chess is not a set of moves. It’s a set of plans (that are comprised of a few moves). I show lots of games on big demonstration boards. People say ‘how do you remember all those moves’. I say ‘I don’t remember all the moves, but all the plans’.

That is, I could forget a move, but as long as I remember the plan in which it fit, the move suggests itself.

If you’re compiling a list of many ways chess and basketball are the same, they’re not games of moves, but games of runs. People are right there’s a chess match underlying the basketball game, but usually for the wrong reason.

Gonzaga’s opponents go on runs, but they’re not long. The Bulldogs get a confident basket from someone, and the momentum changes. They have several players who do that.

Utah has several players who can do that, but sometimes they seem to show a collective waiting for a teammate to make that basket. Exceptional togetherness is one of the things that makes Utah an interesting team to watch, but when they’re together waiting, that’s a problem. For example, the last regular season game vs. Washington.

I think Coach Roberts has instilled in them the right way of thinking. The phrase Vieira and Wilke repeated at their press conference was “being the best version of ourselves”. If they manage that, then it’s less likely they’ll opt as a group to depend on a teammate to rise to the best version of herself, do you agree.

She also has them thinking that there’s more pressure on Gonzaga to maintain their home streak than there is on Utah to break it, leaving them to go out and have fun while Gonzaga wilts under the glare of all those FANS. It was Roberts who told me (in her office at Pacific, a long bloody time ago) that the fans are with you win, tie, or draw.

I imagine Gonzaga’s people are above that. Look at it from their point of view: Utah’s our power conference visitor, and we’re just mid-majors happy to be at home. So I agree with what Coach Roberts is teaching the Utes, while I’m telling my students half-truths all the damn time. (Chess is very hard. My students reach one level with lies I learned from my chess teacher. They reach the next level by unlearning the crap but maintaining the style. I tell them what he told me: “Never let the truth get in the way of a chess lesson”, and whatever they get from that is up to them.)

You know how the TV broadcast will go: The play-by-play person will ask the color person about keys to the game, and the color person will use too many words to say “defense, rebounding, taking care of the ball”.

In their expert analysis, they’ll say foul trouble for Ejim or Pili could be critical. They’ll also sling some version of what their press conference colleagues said: That Brynna Maxwell will be some kind of decisive X factor in this great matchup against her old team.

Somehow, sports media changed the meaning of “X factor” from “an element yet unknown” to a speculation. “If I’m right, I was smart to say that; if I’m wrong, I have a built-in excuse — it was an ‘X factor'”.

I know this is what you’ll hear on TV, because I’m in their club. If you’re reading this because I’ll forgo the secret club handshake, I’ll venture that mental state will be more important than anyone will say on TV, because it’s not a bite-sized, tangible item like PF or 3FGA/M.

While prognosticating, I like to suggest one team has something working in its favor that the other team does not. I’m often wrong about it, but that’s another article in the sports media club charter: No one cares if we’re wrong. (In 1969, Joe Namath guaranteed a Jets victory in the Super Bowl, and he was right. Ever since, sports figures make the same sorts of guarantees, with mixed results. No one cares.)

I think if Gonzaga gets off to a 17-3 lead, and Utah looks ruffled, it’s curtains. I don’t think this can work for the Utes. The Truongs, Ejim, Hollingsworth, Maxwell — they’ve got 40 years of experience.

Remember, one of the reasons we thought Utah would contend this year is that following last year’s loss to LSU, Utah’s leaders became seniors and juniors. Suddenly, a bunch of newcomers had to plug leaks.

At 4 a.m., I still have two games I want to watch.

Here’s why I don’t relish #5 Utah’s chances against #4 Gonzaga Monday night:

Gonzaga has shorter lapses.

The people who use “chess match” as a metaphor for A/B models think chess is an “I move, you move” thing comparable to “relief pitcher in, pinch hitter up”.

Chess is not a set of moves. It’s a set of plans (that are comprised of a few moves). I show lots of games on big demonstration boards. People say ‘how do you remember all those moves’. I say ‘I don’t remember all the moves, but all the plans’.

That is, I could forget a move, but as long as I remember the plan in which it fit, the move suggests itself.

If you’re compiling a list of many ways chess and basketball are the same, they’re not games of moves, but games of runs. People are right there’s a chess match underlying the basketball game, but usually for the wrong reason.

Gonzaga’s opponents go on runs, but they’re not long. The Bulldogs get a confident basket from someone, and the momentum changes. They have several players who do that.

Utah has several players who can do that, but sometimes they seem to show a collective waiting for a teammate to make that basket. Exceptional togetherness is one of the things that makes Utah an interesting team to watch, but when they’re together waiting, that’s a problem. For example, the last regular season game vs. Washington.

I think Coach Roberts has instilled in them the right way of thinking. The phrase Vieira and Wilke repeated at their press conference was “being the best version of ourselves”. If they manage that, then it’s less likely they’ll opt as a group to depend on a teammate to rise to the best version of herself, do you agree.

She also has them thinking that there’s more pressure on Gonzaga to maintain their home streak than there is on Utah to break it, leaving them to go out and have fun while Gonzaga wilts under the glare of all those FANS. It was Roberts who told me (in her office at Pacific, a long bloody time ago) that the fans are with you win, tie, or draw.

I imagine Gonzaga’s people are above that. Look at it from their point of view: Utah’s our power conference visitor, and we’re just mid-majors happy to be at home. So I agree with what Coach Roberts is teaching the Utes, while I’m telling my students half-truths all the damn time. (Chess is very hard. My students reach one level with lies I learned from my chess teacher. They reach the next level by unlearning the crap but maintaining the style. I tell them what he told me: “Never let the truth get in the way of a chess lesson”, and whatever they get from that is up to them.)

You know how the TV broadcast will go: The play-by-play person will ask the color person about keys to the game, and the color person will use too many words to say “defense, rebounding, taking care of the ball”.

In their expert analysis, they’ll say foul trouble for Ejim or Pili could be critical. They’ll also sling some version of what their press conference colleagues said: That Brynna Maxwell will be some kind of decisive X factor in this great matchup against her old team.

Somehow, sports media changed the meaning of “X factor” from “an element yet unknown” to a speculation. “If I’m right, I was smart to say that; if I’m wrong, I have a built-in excuse — it was an ‘X factor'”.

I know this is what you’ll hear on TV, because I’m in their club. If you’re reading this because I’ll forgo the secret club handshake, I’ll venture that mental state will be more important than anyone will say on TV, because it’s not a bite-sized, tangible item like PF or 3FGA/M.

While prognosticating, I like to suggest one team has something working in its favor that the other team does not. I’m often wrong about it, but that’s another article in the sports media club charter: No one cares if we’re wrong. (In 1969, Joe Namath guaranteed a Jets victory in the Super Bowl, and he was right. Ever since, sports figures make the same sorts of guarantees, with mixed results. No one cares.)

I think if Gonzaga gets off to a 17-3 lead, and Utah looks ruffled, it’s curtains. I don’t think this can work for the Utes. The Truongs, Ejim, Hollingsworth, Maxwell — they’ve got 40 years of experience.

Remember, one of the reasons we thought Utah would contend this year is that following last year’s loss to LSU, Utah’s leaders became seniors and juniors. Suddenly, a bunch of newcomers had to plug leaks.

Here’s my Joe Namath-like guarantee: I could be entirely wrong about the game, but I guarantee ESPN talking heads will follow the script above.

Alone in Gonzaga’s indoor rowing facility — the media workroom, I mean — I glanced back and forth from Colorado at Kansas St. to this blank sheet.

I’ve rarely been the writer who stares at a blank sheet. There’s always something to say, though it might be off-topic or mundane. (Natalie Goldberg wrote a couple of outstanding books about how valuable it is to write the off-topic, mundane shit without stopping or thinking, because that gets you closer to what’s really on your mind.)

I mean, I’ve got lots to say about the rental car, but travel items are so well covered by standup comedians.

Coach Mulkey looks like a chunk of spumoni today.

Airline seating and rental cars, those are evergreen topics in standup. Coach Mulkey’s attire is the equivalent fallback for basketball writers.

I swore I wouldn’t sink to that level — I’ve never mentioned what coaches Rueck and Graves are wearing — but Coach Mulkey welcomes it.

Then ESPN broadcast team Ann Schatz and Mike Thibault walked in.

Schatz smiles and greets me as the first colleague in the office. I think: “What do I say now? ‘I turn off the sound when you’re working, because it grates on me that you say nothing that the viewer cannot see plainly’?”. Instead, I nodded cordially.

“Coach”, I said.

“Good morning. How ya doing?”, said Coach Thibault.

I thought about saying: “Why’d you cut Brooke Smith!?”, but 2007 was a long time ago, and I quit while ahead.

Colorado is doing very well to trail 33-31. The lead was 9 a minute ago after the Wildcats made a 4-point play, and the crowd in Manhattan was, as they say, into it.

Tinfoil hat

I stopped there early this afternoon. I’d already leveled up for exchanging greetings with Coach T, and the media conference with Utes Ines Vieira and Matyson Wilke was soon to begin.

I lingered on that word “broadcasters” because I didn’t want to make them sound too dumb. They have a job that shouldn’t exist, and I reckon that makes it a job impossible to do well, or to the satisfaction of every viewer.

Broadcasters want crowd noise to matter. It’s heartening for the viewers to think their support from the seats or their couches matters. There was a TV commercial during football season in which a San Francisco 49ers Faithful has a chair glued to his butt. The spot begins with the guy saying “where’s my chair, my team can’t play to its full potential unless my ass is in the right chair”, and it ends with 49ers star George Kittle telling a TV reporter “we couldn’t have done it without my man Joe Schmoe and his lucky chair”.

Which is pretty funny, and I’d say it was an effective ad if I could remember what it was for. A financial services company. Or snack food.

I don’t think spectators matter a fig’s worth. I think “home court advantage” stems from sleeping in a familiar bed. I’ve said often that basketball games should only be attended by teams plus team staff, officials, game staff, and print journalists.

That’s on my list of crackpot notions, along with free throws should be attempted underhanded, technical fouls should be assessed to players who signal a ball to go their way, and two made free throws should be as valuable as one made dunk.

What? Two free throws are as valuable as a dunk?! OK, you tell them.

Vonleh

Colorado was fortunate to trail by just two then. If you saw that game, did you get the impression that the basketball gods screwed with the physics of basketballs rolling on the rim? Four of Kansas State’s FGA that looked like they were going in … did not go in.

Then Colorado overpowered KSU in Colorado fashion in the second half. In spite of thousands of purple-painted KSU fans making all that crowd noise.

I don’t want to look for boxscores, because opening any page on the web is dangerous when there are recorded games to be watched. I still have Oregon State and Stanford to watch, but Colorado post Aaronette Vonleh must be mentioned.

The Pac-12 is stuffed with outstanding forwards. Vonleh is overlooked because “Vonleh” isn’t spelled phonetically, like Brink, Betts, or Beers. And because it doesn’t start with ‘B’, I guess.

Vonleh is a truck, but she had SEVEN steals in the first half. Seven steals in one half is not something we associate with truck-like forwards.

If it weren’t for the crazy bounces and Vonleh’s interference, Kansas State might’ve led by 15 at half. The second half still could’ve played out like it did, but you know what I mean.

Media conference, with players

The media conference put two players under the harsh lights, then one coach. Utah’s assignees to that task were guards Ines Vieira and Matyson Wilke.

Vieira and Wilke are outstanding contributors to the saving of Utah’s collective ass.

The “most improved player” award could’ve gone to Vieira or Iriafen, and if the voters needed a tiebreaker in their minds, Iriafen’s team won the regular season championship. If you had to single out one Ute whose responsibilities were most increased after injuries to the starting 1 and the starting 2, it was she.

She delivered. Ines’ dad is always most supportive on social. I should tell that man I’m sorry for attributing that to what we expect of student-athletes’ parents rather than the fact that he knew before the rest of us that she’d kick all kinds of ass.

I told a Utah staffer that I’d never heard Ines speak. That’s weird, the Utah director of basketball operations said, because she never shuts up.

Among the question marks on the Utah bench, it was Matyson Wilke who established herself as a period, or at least as a semicolon.

Wilke transfered from Wisconsin, which I guess she took as the best option closests to Beaver Dam. The two things I want to ask Wilke are: 1) Why is her hometown called Beaver Dam, and 2) What does the modern Wisconsin Badger know about Suzy Favor?

Badgers

Before I could say Matyson Wilke is my favorite basketball player from Wisconsin, I had to search for any I might’ve forgotten. Seems not, which fits with Wisconsin as a football school.

Decades ago, I was in a tabletop football league, and one of my favorite teams was the 1962 Wisconsin Badgers, who in real life lost the 1963 Rose Bowl to USC. The simulation sheets didn’t provide much information about the teams or their histories, so I wrote to the Wisconsin athletic department to ask ‘who were those guys?’. Someone in the U. Wisconsin athletic department sent me a photocopy of their football media guide from 1962. Wisconsin will always stand out in my mind for that reason, even though they’ve never produced a basketball player I can name besides Matyson Wilke.

Wisconsin also produced Suzy Favor, one of the best middle-distance runners in the world during the early ’80s. Blonde, pretty, and fast, Suzy Favor was in TV commercials for shoes and shampoo.

Mental illness ran in her family — her brother’s depression pushed him to jump off a tall building. In her bipolar case, the inner voices caused her to fear losing and winning. In the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Favor thought to throw herself to the ground rather than finish 1500 meters, and then have to talk to people.

Rather than talk to a worldwide audience, Suzy Favor fell. Really, that feeling goes for ONE PERSON as much as it does to BILLION PEOPLE.

Somewhere before 2010, I’d been in bed for a couple of months, staring at the wall. Pacific was visiting UC Davis, and I thought: Coach Simpson and Coach Roberts both think you’ll be there, so be there. I drove to Davis, thinking the whole time “if I can get through this without talking to anyone, it’ll be OK”.

Can you imagine how it feels to be terrified of interacting with people, and having to wind your way through a basketball arena on game night? You don’t want to make physical contact with anyone, because that might lead to verbal contact, and so on.

I made it to the floor at UC Davis, with my chair at the press table in sight, and an unfamiliar man comes charging from the seats to introduce himself. It was one of the scariest conversations I’ve had in my life. I believed he was playing some sort of “good cop” role before busting me for something I couldn’t remember doing.

I think of Martin as a dear friend now, and he’s said all along that I seemed quite OK then, though I do not see how that could’ve been so. I laugh about it now, but I was so afraid. And that was for dealing with one stranger. The entire world was looking at Suzy Favor.

After retiring from running, Suzy Favor and her husband, a Badger baseball player, started a real estate company. She didn’t like that much, because it meant talking to many people.

Then she worked as an escort in Las Vegas, and was most successful. Which makes sense, because there’s just one person to deal with, while the dynamics favor (humor unintended) supply, not demand.

When an investigative reporter pieced Favor’s story together, she was back in international news for a time, and these days she’s an advocate for others with bipolar disorders. Perhaps Matyson Wilke has never heard of Suzy Favor, or perhaps every Wisconsin student-athlete has some story to tell related to the legend of Suzy Favor.

Media conference, with coach

Then Coach Roberts had to face the press. Who remembers Face the Press? There was a time when journalists asked hard questions, and it made for interesting television for one public figure to field questions on camera from a panel of journalists.

These days, I use “face the press” as a joke to myself, because modern sports media ask only the dumbest softball questions possible. The great baseball movie “Bull Durham” parodied the modern media-to-sports-figure interaction, which had the undesirable effect of making it dumber.

Coach Roberts has become a true professional about handling media. They ask about Brynna Maxwell, perhaps fishing for conflict within a soundbite, but no (“She’s a great kid”, said Roberts. “We wish her the best, just not tomorrow.”).

They ask about the offensive structure similar to both teams (one overwhelming forward, plus four wings who attack on ground and in air), aiming for — well, I dunno, because they’re just doing their jobs to fill time and space.

Coach Roberts said both teams will be prepared, and one team will execute more effectively than the other. She used the “chess match” metaphor twice, which wounds me deeply.

It’s universally accepted that “chess match” applies as a metaphor to any sporting or business or geopolitical engagement between two parties where both sides have things to think about.

One baseball manager brings in a relief pitcher. The other manager sends a pinch hitter to the plate. Media calls it a chess match.

Icing the shooter

Oh, while I’m on the subject of this pet peeve, I’ve been wanting to say something about the Presbyterian-Sacred Heart play-in game.

Presbyterian won the play-in 47-42 Thursday, earning the right to get crushed by South Carolina Saturday afternoon. It was close at the end, which made one replay review noteworthy.

The officials reviewed a foul call for, um, about two hours. They were determining whether a shooting foul warranted an upgrade, a call they don’t want to screw up, because possession of the ball hinges on it. While they’re huddled over the replay monitor for three hours, the FT shooter waits.

One of the enduring sports cliches is “icing” a FT shooter or FG kicker before the critical free throw or field goal attempts. This four-hour replay review was the longest instance of “icing the free throw shooter” I’ve ever seen, but had no effect on the Blue Hen shooter, who made both.

Practice

Utah’s practice immediately followed the media conference.

“They won’t let me ask the questions I want to ask”, I said.

The only person in this place I talk to is Coach Roberts, I said, and someone has to explain to me what an “indoor rowing facility” is. Gonzaga converted its indoor rowing facility to the media center for this basketball tournament. There’s an oar on the wall to commemorate some damn thing. There’s a giant plaque acknowledging the donors who built it. It makes no sense to me, because how can you properly train a team of rowers for actual water in an indoor facility?

“What are you talking about?”, said Coach.

That’s why I keep quiet during press conferences.

This is the latest in a season I’ve attended a practice, and it’s less interesting. In November and January, there are still knots to unravel and questions to answer. In March, forget it. If the team hasn’t figured out who they are by March, they’re watching these games on TV, not playing in them.

I learned at Sunday’s practice that freshman forward Daniela Falcon Hernandez does, in fact, exist. She’s a real person, wearing #11, standing six-foot-something, just like it says on the roster.

Hernandez has not played. I thought Alyssa Blanck was the last player on the bench. Blanck played in the last minute of Saturday’s win against South Dakota State, attempting one field goal (which I truly wish was made, because the team seems to adore this kid, so that would’ve been a great moment).

It’s reassuring to know that Hernandez is with the team, not just a mistake on the roster webpage that the athletic department hasn’t bothered to fix.

Correcting basketball-reference.com

Jeff Judkins was a 2nd-round pick of the Boston Celtics in 1978. He coached at Brigham Young for 20-some years, when the Cougars went to 10 NCAA tournaments.

These days he’s on Coach Roberts’ staff, though I can’t figure out what his role is, besides Silent Bob. There’s a trope in pop entertainment where some character doesn’t talk for the entire presentation until the end, when it’s a doozy.

Coach Judkins sat on the sideline for the whole practice, until he got up once to undo a defensive mishap. Like Silent Bob, he’s got one line in the movie, but it’s the one the players will remember from practice.

I finally got to talk to the guy Saturday. I said: When I was 19, living in a yard shed doing nothing but running NBA simulations from 1979, I said the hell with the minutes-played suggestion on your card, and let you play 45 or 48.

He laughed, said he had fun that year. You can look it up. On a per-minute basis, Boston’s leading scorers in 1979-80 were Larry Bird, Pete Maravich, and Jeff Judkins. That’s why I scrapped the item on his simulation card that said 10 minutes per game. With Bird, Maravich, and Judkins all getting 45 minutes, I was lighting it up with that Celtics team.

I had to consult basketball-reference dot com for some reason Sunday morning. Years ago, there was a Chrome plug-in that enabled basketball-reference.com as one of your search bar options. Man, I wish that plug-in were still in development.

Judkins’ page was my last visit there, and I spotted March 23 as his birthdate. Sunday, I said: Coach, if I’d known yesterday was your birthday, I would’ve spared you the story about my living in a yard shed and running you ragged in simulations.

Coach Judkins said the online references — Wikipedia, NBA dot com, basketball-reference dot com, all relying on each other — have it wrong, because his birthdate is March 27.

I’m beat. I got home from chess club Friday night, watched Stanford and Colorado on DVR, Lyfted to the airport, and here I am at the Wyndham by Ramada in downtown Spokane. I went to the Wyndham by Ramada at the airport first, but that was wrong. I also learned something about cars that start with a pushbutton: You can lose your keys while the car is in motion.

I have nothing to do Sunday but sit and write in the media workroom at the McCarthey Center (and maintain streaks at Duolingo, Ingress, and PoGo). Gonzaga converted its indoor rowing facility to media space. Am I only media member among hundreds who’s wondering: What the hell is indoor rowing?

Utah has the Huntsman Basketball Facility, next door to the Huntsman arena. What the hell is the basketball facility? Several practice gyms, plus office space? I’m in favor of it being there, so I don’t ask.

But “indoor rowing facility” baffles me.

I had one question for Utah’s coaching staff after the Utes knocked out South Dakota State (Dru Gylten, a star for both schools, cut two jerseys apart to make one of red plus blue, but that’s out of proportion. Should be 80 percent Utah red, 20 percent SDSU blue. She’s working in medicine these days, going back to school for another couple of years, accordingly. A truly great kid, she.).

Freshman forward Reese Ross played some spirited minutes in the first quarter. Coach Roberts said once that she prefers the first quarter for freshmen because they can’t cause irreparable damage that early. For instance, Ross threw one pass to no one on the baseline.

I think of her as a freshman mishap walking, but I wouldn’t label her so unless I also thought she’s a talent worth cultivating. I said the same thing of Oregon State’s freshman guard Kaurova – you never know what spectacular feat she’ll accomplish next, or to which team’s benefit.

Ross subbed out, and assistant coach Freeman gave her a talking to.

Jerise Freeman is a unique person in Utah’s organization. Like director of basketball operations Kendall Rodriguez, Freeman played for Roberts at Pacific, but the big difference is that Kendall was a Roberts recruit, while Jerise was a senior on the team Roberts took on. Somewhere around 2010, I asked Coach which of the Tigers she wished she’d had more time to work with, and the answer was: assistant coach Jerise Freeman.

I had to know what was said. Coach Freeman didn’t remember. I said Reese must remember, because that’s part of her job.

Angling herself defensively was the subject in that exchange, said Ross.

Now I’m glad I opted to DVR a game I attended, because let’s roll tape….

Oh, holy crap, I also recorded UCLA vs. California Baptist, USC vs. TAMCC, and Arizona vs. Syracuse. There truly is nothing like the first weekend of the NCAA basketball tournament, is there?

Reese subbed in with 6:26 left in the first, Utah leading 9-1.

4:47 – There’s her turnover.

4:25 – This must be the play Coach Freeman was talking about. Jackrabbit guard Jenna Hopp (yep, Hopp the Jackrabbit; teamed with Stanford’s Hannah Jump, we’re on to something) made a slight fake right, which Reese bought. She was then angled with the offensive threat, instead of against, and then fouled Hopp for a possible 3-point-play.

In 22 seconds, a turnover plus a foul from behind the shooter. Like I said, a freshman mishap walking. I’d prefer her freshman learning experience extend past Monday. We shall see.