• utes

Young again

When I was a kid forming college dreams, Weber State was on my list because they had an outstanding journalism program.

It was a long time ago, when reporters adhered to principles like having two sources to credibly support the facts, and being uninvolved in the stories.

That sounds certifiably mad today.

Sportswriting was always a little different. If you held sports reporting to same editorial standards as news, the items sounded mostly the same, while only the names were different.

Television changed everything, by turning athletes into deities, and encouraging the talking heads to scream.

When I was a journalism student, all I needed to remember about Weber State at Oregon State was the Beavers shot 85 percent in the first quarter. These days, I’m expected to have an opinion.

The roles of the readers has changed, too. 40 years ago, if I said Oregon State shot 85% in the first quarter, you could look it up. If the Beavers hadn’t shot 11-for-13, I wasn’t doing my job. Today, I can say: “I stake my life on either Dasia Young or Jenna Johnson having a career game Thursday”, but if they’re both terrible, you don’t expect me to fall dead.

I don’t know what a career game for Dasia Young looks like, really. I hope it would be splashy, because a career game for Jenna Johnson might not reflect so brightly in the boxscore.

I nearly forgot what I sat down to write in the first place. I plan to call Coach Roberts Tuesday, and if she asks me what I thought of the Southern Utah game, I need an answer. That’s not how it would’ve gone 40 years ago, but today I’d say we looked like a young team again.

Which is sort of a weird thing to say. Nine months ago, Utah was a young team, reaching the round of 16 without one senior. One of the notions behind Utah’s expected rise to the rounds of 8 and 4 is that a single summer turned sophomores Kneepkens, McQueen, and Johnson into seasoned veterans.

Then Gianna got hurt, and her minutes are going to players younger than she.

In the first three minutes of Sunday’s Arizona/Arizona St. broadcast, someone brought up Utah’s devastating blow to the roster. Which reminded me to turn off the sound, though it was mostly correct.

Gianna put excellent numbers in the boxscore, but she was also the emotional leader. Pili and Young are seniors, but neither is outstandingly expressive.

Yeah, losing #5 was a major setback, but the team can’t remain set back, and media can’t use it as a primary talking point for another four months, can we?

Again, it makes me feel old that I even have “talking points”.

With the choice of Christmas or conference play coming first, I’ll take conference play

48 Texas at San Antonio
61 Oregon

The term “also ran” got its start in racing forms. One horse won, one horse placed, one horse showed, and the rest of the field “also ran”.

“Also ran” is not such a bad thing. An Olympics also-ran is pretty effing great, whether in 4th place or last — because getting there is the thing for most athletes.

But the term ‘also-ran’ evolved to roughly equal “washed up” or “out to pasture”, especially in its noun form. “He’s an also-ran” is a pejorative these days, though it applies to Al Gore, still a force to be reckoned with, I think.

UTSA at Oregon was close in the last few minutes, because Oregon played down to UTSA’s level, the sign of a team that will finish in the elite Pac-12 as an “also ran”.

“Also ran” in the Pac-12 is good enough to win in most of the other leagues in NCAA.

48 Houston
95 Washington St.

Can’t swing a dead cat in the NCAA without hitting a Utah transfer. I liked senior forward Peyton McFarland — good lateral movement — though she didn’t fit Utah’s current scheme in which everyone in the “five out” can reliably make the 3-pointer.

She’s shooting better than .600 close to the basket for Houston, while playing 15 mpg, and she’s probably happier there.

McFarland entered the game with 2:36 left in the first. She rebounded her own miss, and put it back in, to tie it at 16-16.

Washington State scored the next 9 points. Houston was shooting 7-of-12, but Washington State put the hammer down, turned out the lights, cranked up the defensive intensity, pick your cliche. Houston shot 11-of-52 from there.

Meanwhile, Leger-Walker made a triple, Murakatete a double, and Wallack a career-high in points.

Arizona 91
Arizona St. 52

Someone has to be 12th in the Pac-12, why not Arizona St. (who were 7-3 coming in).

When the Wildcats shot 72% in the first half of the third game of the day, I’d had enough.

In the first conference game of the season, Washington impressively shut down WASU, but that was the third game of that day, and I was gassed.

The days when I could do four tournament games in a day while running back and forth to press events are long gone. When conference play brings six games in a day, I’ll have to be selective.

USC 93
Fullerton St. 44

I killed this game, in a sense.

I thought USC might win this game by 100 (as it happened, the Trojans were less awe-inspiring against Fullerton than they were against San Diego), and earlier in the day, I contemplated a point spread.

Point spreads aren’t based on the oddsmakers’ analysis of this team or that, but on getting money in on both sides. I thought USC minus-60 would get some action on Fullerton, and I said on Facebook that they could win by 100, while bettors would be split on 60, and the Titans might cover at +60 if Coach Gottlieb wants a long look at the bench.

USC led 50-20 at half, so -60 looked on the nose, and then the reserves got to play.

Seth Parnow, who worked in analytics for NBA Milwaukee, described a “rubber band effect” in his GREAT book The Midrange Theory.

The idea is that the score between two teams is attached to a rubber band, and the further the rubber band is stretched, the more it wants to snap back toward equilibrium. Which is why overwhelmingly superior teams might lead by 30 at half, but don’t lead by 60 at the end.

The factors that enter into this include resting the starters, and the trailing team getting some favor from the officials. This happens, according to the 1995 NCAA official of the year, who worked as the West Coast Conference officials observer at St. Mary’s games. Once a game is out of hand, the officials are less strict about enforcement. The NCAA will pay lip service to the score not mattering to the referee crew, but it does.

Cars and school buses

When I put my mind to avoiding spoilage of movie endings, sports scores, or news items, I can.

Something happened within the University of Utah athletics department. It’s days-old, stale news, but I’m waiting for Coach Roberts to tell me about the car — or cars.

Utah’s Crimson Collective — how that’s separate from the Crimson Club, I dunno, though it probably has to do with gold bullion — delivered a new car to a women’s basketball practice, and possibly to every student-athlete on campus.

Why the coaching staffs or beat reporters don’t get cars is beyond me, and how the NCAA is letting this happen is also a mystery.

If everyone got a car, I think it would’ve been funny if Coach had told the team: “We’re not taking a bus to Southern Utah for Saturday’s game. You all have to drive yourselves.”

Utah 96
Southern Utah 60

Sophomore guard Lani White scored 11 points in the 4th quarter, after her first field goal in a month was waved off by an offensive foul in the 3rd.

I thought: Basketball gods, you really suck sometimes — we need that kid.

We also need Issy Palmer, though Ines Vieira has been spectacular given the additional minutes. 116 assists and steals opposite 20 turnovers. I think her 2 FGM Saturday were both layups following her steal in the backcourt.

Wisconsin transfer Matyson Wilke had season highs in points in assists, and wouldn’t you know it, we need her, too. Wilke’s 6 assists were matched by K. McQueen, who also shared the team lead in rebounds. The Utes are a splashy team, but McQueen has the largest production-to-splash ratio among them.

My notes say “24 defzhgarbled”, which means Jenna played some defense, I think.

Pili had her points-equal-to-minutes-played. She has to put up 40 for the media to notice.

Southern Utah’s head coach is Tracy Mason, whom I remember at St. Mary’s associate head coach Sanders. Allison Fasnacht also moved from St. Mary’s, after serving as interim head coach last season.

Media isn’t privy to whatever happened at St. Mary’s to cause Paul Thomas’ dismissal. Coach Thomas was there for 16 years, on the edge of a technical foul the whole time, directing the Gaels while they were the best Northern California team in the West Coast Conference.

Speaking of St. Mary’s.

St. Mary’s 32
Washington 64

Washington beat Pacific 81-64 Nov. 15, which I didn’t give much thought, but would you believe 64 is the best score yet by Washington’s opponents. The Huskies are 11-0, holding five of those opponents to fewer than 40.

If there’s any doubt that Washington is real, Washington St. — a stronger opponent, according to NET — scored 2 points in the first quarter last Sunday, shooting 22-for-57 for the game.

45.7 ppg allowed would lead the NCAA, unless Old Dominion or Georgetown improves on 46.1 or 46.8. Opponents shoot .311 vs. Washington, second to South Carolina’s .286 allowed. Utah shot 28-for-62 last week, the best by SC opponents.

The Gaels shot 12-for-49 Saturday, when four Husky starters played fewer than 19 minutes.

When conference play starts, Washington defends against Utah (1st in the NCAA in FG%), UCLA (3rd), USC (11th), Colorado (14th).

Oh, on that topic, lemme mention Texas (4th). Texas squashed Arizona 88-75 last Wed., and it wasn’t that close. Texas led by 24 entering the 4th quarter, before Arizona’s press paid off. I’ve begun looking at teams outside the Pac-12 in terms of their possible matchups against USC and UCLA — Texas has sufficient size, and more than enough speed, the fastest team I’ve seen so far.

Eastern Washington 70
Cal 78

I almost turned this game off.

Eastern Washington led 61-46 with 9 minutes left, and I was tired of crowd shots of screaming kids.

Kids’ days are great for the kids, great for the team’s community outreach, bad for grumpy, old sportswriters. Haas Pavilion is 2.3 miles from the office, so I easily could’ve attended an 11:30 game, and had enough time left in the day to work. The kids are lucky I didn’t go. I would’ve told all 4000 of them individually to shut the hell up because I’m trying to concentrate, and damn it, so should you.

I wondered where they parked all those school buses. I don’t even like parking at Cal when they give me a pass to the garage underneath the gym.

A heartening loss to no. 1 South Carolina

UCLA 95
Florida St. 78

As UCLA brushed Florida St. aside, I had this thought:

I’m in the 96th percentile of American chessplayers. If you put me across the board from Caruana or another player in the 100th percentile, the game begins 0-0, but eventually it’s windshield vs. bug, and it was never really close.

Among 330 D1 basketball teams, the 95th percentile team is around #16. That team is in the AP Top 25, but South Carolina or UCLA is the windshield, and the game is maybe never in doubt. That’s Florida St. at #20: Good enough to beat 310 teams, but far behind nos. 1-5.

My friend Jim, the author of “Chess for Dummies”, is a Stanford season ticketholder. When the transfer portal popped up in our conversation, he brought up Lauren Betts, and shook his fist.

I don’t think I saw Betts for 10 minutes last year, but Jim did, and today I see why he wished she’d stayed on The Farm. Betts is like the monsters menacing Tokyo in Japanese science fiction movies, and you gotta wonder about Coach VanDerveer’s plan for her.

I’ll wager today that the selection committee puts UCLA and USC on the same side of the bracket in March, so they might meet in the national semifinal, but not later. An all-Los-Angeles national championship game would be bad for business.

You know what I love about Coach Close? She takes the dumbest LaLooshian questions seriously. It’s like her brain won’t let her give media the dumb soundbite it expects.

Utah 69
South Carolina 78

Tournament bridge players have a saying about “the game [they] were dealt”.

Before the scores are tallied, an astute partnership can estimate pretty closely the score they would’ve achieved had they done everything right, and also their score after figuring in their misplays.

The score based on doing everything right is “the session we were dealt”. A bridge pair can play well, but place poorly because it wasn’t “dealt a good game”. (If you get your druthers, you want to play uneventful, ‘flat’ hands against good pairs, and the wilder hands against weak pairs. That’s being dealt a good game.)

Against the no. 1 team, Utah had their chances. I think Utah was dealt enough of a game to take South Carolina down, but 11 points from 23 SC turnovers isn’t making the most of the opportunities.

On the other hand, they looked like they’re steeling themselves for the hard games to come, and without Gianna. I thought St. Joseph’s was a worst case, in which no one looked ready for the sudden, additional demands. (I said maybe Matyson Wilke, but boy, did she play like a freshman today.)

Dasia was much better against South Carolina than St. Joseph’s, and she’s the clearest case of an individual who must make up for losing Kneepkens, though it’s a wholly-shared responsibility.

South Carolina threw four or five different defenders at Alissa Pili, and she scored 37 points, anyway. The ESPN jesters couldn’t think of a player who best compares to Pili, because I think they filtered their search to females. I’ve been saying she’s closest to young Shaq — low center of gravity, wide and strong, unreal moves and touch beneath the basket.

A dozen years ago at Pacific, the Tigers talked about the little green army men awards that were earned by acts of courage and toughness. If Coach Roberts is still presenting those, Jenna Johnson might garner a couple for taking five offensive fouls, while fouling out with five of her own.

If one saw the boxscore but didn’t see the game, there’d probably be some question about Kennady McQueen playing all 40 minutes. If you saw the game, however.

I was most amused at Coach Roberts’ answer to “what do you have to do in the second half” at halftime. Like I’ve been saying recently, you could guess it, or make it up yourself, submit it to ESPN, and ESPN would buy it.

Were I talking to Coach Roberts about this game, I’d say: South Carolina did a great job fighting through our screens. She’d say something, I’d write that down. One of the best things about writing a blog with zero readers is that I don’t make things simple for an ESPN audience.

Washington 60
Washington St. 55

Finally, conference play instead of a non-conference mismatch.

The Huskies led 37-17 at half, after playing some remarkable defense against four Cougars who didn’t have the ball.

The Huskies led 37-17 at half, after playing some remarkable defense against four Cougars who didn’t have the ball.

12/9

Nevada 49
UC Berkeley 76

Gianna Kneepkens’ season-ending injury has me looking at every team differently.

For instance, Cal might’ve found a suitable complements-turned-replacements for Ioanna Krimili (the Golden Bears’ leading scorer until knee problems recurred) in McKayla Williams, who led the game in scoring with 20 Saturday, and Tennessee transfer Marta Suarez (14 ppg, 7 rpg in 10 games).

The first half vs. Nevada might’ve been Cal’s best 20 minutes yet (8 pt, 3 rb, 2 as for Kemery Martin, still looking wholly recovered from her own knee problems in Utah), though it all turned messy after halftime.

Jackson St. 58
Oregon St. 78

Early foul trouble for Raegan Beers meant addiIt seems crazy, but Utah was projected as the best team in the Pac-12 in October, but for the loss of one All-American, the Utes could drop behind three Californias, two Washingtons, Oregon St., and travel partner Colorado. That’s how good the conference is, and how important Kneepkens was. Who’ll be surprised if that’s the first thing ESPN tells us at game time in 12 hours?tional time for forwards Timea Gardner and Kelsey Rees, who each recorded a double, 27 and 25 in sum.

An off-game for AJ Marotte meant the Beavers played nine deep — Paurova, Hansford, and Shuler each played near season-high minutes, and they looked quite capable.

It seems crazy, but Utah was projected as the best team in the Pac-12 in October, but for the loss of one All-American, the Utes could drop behind three Californias, two Washingtons, Oregon St., and travel partner Colorado. That’s how good the conference is, and how important Kneepkens was. Who’ll be surprised if that’s the first thing ESPN tells us at game time in 12 hours?

I very much like Oregon St. If Utah remains mired at the level they played at St. Joseph’s, the Beavers are the 5th-best team in the conference.

It seems crazy, but Utah was projected as the best team in the Pac-12 in October, but for the loss of one All-American, the Utes could drop behind three Californias, two Washingtons, Oregon St., and travel partner Colorado. That’s how good the conference is, and how important Kneepkens was. Who’ll be surprised if that’s the first thing ESPN tells us at game time in 12 hours?

Worst case, part one

Utah 74
St. Joseph’s 48

Revisit the LaLooshian exchange in which media says: “In the absence of one of your best players, who needs to step up?”, and then the coach tries not to roll eyes before replying: “They all do”.

In the case of the Utah women’s basketball team, stepping up to fill a Gianna Kneepkens-sized hole is harder than it appears at a glance, because Gianna’s one of those players who makes everyone better.

With the exception of Alissa Pili — the one-in in Utah’s four-out, one-in schemes — Kneepkens created the most space on the floor with multi-directional movement, and then with the exception of Ines Vieida (whose primary job it is), Kneepkens enabled Utes teammates to use that space with the most assists.

In other words, before Utah can take one step forward in Gianna’s absence, they’re taking two steps back. At St. Joseph’s Thursday, the team got its first taste of what they’re up against.

74 points was their lowest total of the season — they were terrible in the loss to Baylor, when they put up 77 — and 18 assists on 28 made field goals is their worst rate since Baylor.

The most immediate beneficiary of Gianna’s minutes is senior forward Dasia Young (she’s the most logical option, considering that ‘guard’ and ‘forward’ labels don’t mean as much to Utah as they do to most teams), who put herself back on the bench with two early fouls.

The next guard in Utah’s rotation — following Vieida/Palmer and McQueen/Kneepkens (Jenna Johnson is somewhere between 2.5 and 4.25 in the traditional 1/2/3/4/5 scheme) — is sophomore Lani White, and I don’t think I’m too unfair in singling her out as the player whose immediate improvement Utah might need most.

In Utah’s last 8 games, White has contributed 9 points and 9 assists. To feel worse about this, see Teya Sidberry at Boston College, where she’s playing 27 minutes, averaging 14 points and 7 rebounds. Lani White’s emergence as a freshman was perhaps Sidberry’s primary motivation to enter the portal, which might go forgotten in Lani would, say, get her crap together.

I think St. Joseph’s was a worst case — no one stepped up (freshman Matyson Wilke, maybe), but the group stepped back — and #1 South Carolina in two days was going to be a tough road under the best circumstances.

I don’t even think getting blown out is the greatest danger. The worst hazard for Utah vs. South Carolina would be (as it was against Baylor) failing to play as a unit, then the ‘singular hero’ mind setting in for three months.

I still have Gonzaga at Cal to watch, for which I make the visiting Bulldogs a slight favorite, while they’re still high from beating that team they thought was Stanford.

Gonzaga 78
UC Berkeley 70 OT

Gonzaga’s biggest lead before the overtime was 4. The Bulldogs made 7 turnovers in 45 minutes, though maybe you’re inclined to expect that from a starting five of fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-year seniors.

Brynna Maxwell rebounding a Kemery Martin miss sounds like a 2021 Utah practice. Maxwell made a 4-point play in the 4th quarter (while neither team led by more than 3); Martin was not much of a factor for three fouls in 18 minutes.

  • utes

Harsh media light

The best interview in the business was UC Davis coach Sandy Simpson. If you let him talk, he’d quote novelists and Beat poets, but that’s now how today’s sports media works.

Sideline reporter Charissa Thompson got in hot water last month for saying she fabricated football coaches’ quotes, and Erin Andrews — one of the best-known faces in the business — said she had, too. I’ve been saying for years that we can all do this, because coaches and players and media follow the same script.

Coach Simpson called it the “coach-reporter song and dance”, and said dealing with the press was an obligation. Which was a damn shame, because like I said, if you let Coach Simpson go off script, he was one of the most well-spoken people I’ve ever met.

A typical snippet from the coach-reporter song and dance goes:

“Coach, you’re down 52 points at half, partly because your quarterback has thrown three interceptions returned for touchdowns. Who has to step up for you in the second half?”

“Well, they all do.”

Media asks that dumb question because their copy is easier to write if a coach singles out the bum who threw three “pick sixes”, but coaches never do.

In the same vein, a basketball writer could say: “Coach, your player of the year candidate is lost for the season to an injury. Where are you looking to replace her 25 minutes, 18 points, 6 rebounds, and 4 assists?”.

A coach would say she’s not looking at one player, she’s looking at 10.

Utah visits St. Joseph’s today, and meets #1 South Carolina Sunday in Connecticut. They’re going in after losing Gianna Kneepkens, who leads the Utes in more than numbers, while her numbers are outstanding.

Coach Roberts can say she’s counting on 10 players to step up in Gianna’s absence, but specifically, Kneepkens is a guard, and her only guards who were playing fewer than 22 minutes per game are freshman Matyson Wilke and sophomore Lani White.

Coach Roberts can’t say it, but I can: I’m looking squarely at Lani White, who’s been a disappointment. Her .491 FG% from last season is down to .281, while her .444 3FG% dropped to .208. She’s visibly lost confidence.

Wilke is in the difficult position of “freshman thrown into the deep end of the pool for a championship-contending team”. White’s been to the round of 16. Sure, the Utah family would prefer to bring Wilke along gradually, and let White regain her feet in an unhurried way, but those are luxuries the family has lost.

Wilke is in the difficult position of “freshman thrown into the deep end of the pool for a championship-contending team”. White’s been to the round of 16. Sure, the Utah family would prefer to bring Wilke along gradually, and let White regain her feet in an unhurried way, but those are luxuries the family has lost.

Life goes on

People with mental health issues lie convincingly when asked if we’re OK, because if you’re convinced, you’ll leave us alone.

If you want to know if I’m OK, ask me if I’m writing. For some reason, I can’t lie about that. If I’m not writing, I’m not OK.

I haven’t written anything in two days. I’ve been sleeping, which is something all depressed people know. I heard a good joke about it: Getting out of bed while depressed is the first step toward going back to bed in five hours.

In other words, I’ve had a bad couple of days. Kneepkens’ injury changed the national landscape, and in unexpected ways.

UT Arlington 74
Colorado 95

Colorado is a group that’s got enough size up front to wrestle with Southern Cal, and enough skill all around to compete. Post Quay Miller had 21 and 11. Guard Frida Formann tied a school record with six threes made in the first half, and finished with 23 points in 21 minutes.

UT Arlington looked better than a 1-8 team. Like the other 330 teams in D1, we’ll see how competitive the Mavericks are in the WAC.

Montana St. 50
Washington 55

They were consistent. The Bobcats pressured the Huskies into 22 turnovers. Montana St. shot 20-for-53, Washington was +16 in rebound differential. Huskies rebounded, turned it over. Bobcats missed, played pressure defense.

Washington and Washington St. play the Pac-12’s first in-conference game Sunday. I’ve groused for weeks about non-conference mismatches. Here we go

Washington and Washington St. play the Pac-12’s first in-conference game Sunday. I’ve groused for weeks about non-conference mismatches. Here we go.

12/3

Utah guard Gianna Kneepkens, on the watch list for national player of the year and shown in the background picture above, is out for the season following a foot injury suffered Saturday.

Utah coach Roberts said in a press release that the “entire program is devastated for Gianna”. I’m a grain of sand in the scheme of things, but that includes me.

I gave myself the job of writing what I observe in Pac-12 women’s basketball. Roberts said “we’ll persevere and our goals are still achievable”, and she would remind me that we’ve been through worse.

On their way to Connecticut for the Hall of Fame showcase, the Utes pause in Philadelphia Thursday to visit St. Joseph’s. We still have jobs to do.

Stanford 78
Gonzaga 96

With Stanford’s Cameron Brink out with illness and Kiki Iriafen benched with foul trouble, host Gonzaga beat the no. 2 Cardinal 96-78 Sunday.

Credit Gonzaga with playing as hard as if Stanford were at full strength. Forward Yvonne Ejim put up 27 and 12, and won the West Coast Conference award as player of the week.

Shooter Brynna Maxwell had 16 points at half on the way to a career best 27 — Brynna has always been one of my favorite players, though her best year at Utah was as a freshman. After that, she was a focus of defensive attention — had she managed to play at her Sunday level consistently, she’d still be in Salt Lake.

The Bulldogs and their backers were overjoyed — Gonzaga cracked the top 25 — while I’d lost interest in the game after Brink put on her warmups.

San Diego 58
Southern Cal 89

USC coach Gottlieb’s 2013 team at Cal included four WNBA players and reached the national semifinals. I swear this Trojans group is scarier than that great Cal team was.

The Trojans are huge. Three starters are at least 6-foot-2, and at times look that wide. They were so much bigger than the Toreros that I was reminded of grade school games in which teams are formed by grade level.

USC plays with chips on their shoulders, and they’re fast enough to run after made baskets.

USC wing JuJu Watkins was the high school player of the year, and etch her name on the Pac-12 top freshman trophy now. Watkins had 30 pt, 8 rb, 5 as. All-conference forward Rayah Marshall put up 20 and 12, plus 4 blocks (one of the best defenders in the country).

December 2

Colorado 74
Air Force Academy 58

Long ago, a friend made a quip about Air Force that has stuck with me. I left the office, saying I was off to watch basketball.

“Who’s playing?” Joseph said.

“Air Force at Saint Mary’s”, I said.

He laughed. “Air Force? Air Force has a basketball team?”

“Uh huh.”

“You have to be tall to play basketball, right?”

“No, but it helps.”

“Don’t you have to be below a certain height to fit into an airplane cockpit?”

True enough, the AF Falcons’ roster lists their tallest player at 6 feet even, which means she could be between 5-foot-9 and 5-foot-11 (see following re: Western Kentucky).

Colorado is big, tough, fast. AFA forward Dsaha MacMillan tangled with Buffaloes Aaronette Vonleh and Quay Miller for 25 minutes, making 1 defensive rebound and attempting 1 FG inside the arc.

What I found charming about AFA’s roster page is that the student-athletes are in dress uniform, while noteworthy that, with one exception, they’re all wearing the same ribbon.

Wouldn’t you expect in a group of cadets ranging from 18 to 22 years old that the upperclassmen would’ve garnered additional ribbons?

Western Kentucky 52
Oregon St. 76

Western Kentucky is unusual in that their team leaders are a pair of guards, and more so because junior Alexis Mead and sophomore Acacia Hayes are very short, relatively speaking.

I think the rule of thumb is if the student-athlete is taller than 6-foot-3, the roster reports her as shorter than she truly is, and if the student-athlete is shorter than 5-foot-9, the roster tacks on a few inches. If she’s anywhere in the neighborhood of 6 feet, there you go.

I don’t think Hayes is 5-foot-8 as listed, or Mead 5-foot-5. In any event, they contribute 29 of the Hilltoppers’ 68 ppg, along with 7 rebounds and 6 assists. Mead is somewhere between 5-foot and 5-foot-5, and she leads WKU in offensive rebounds.

They’re the team leaders, and they’re pretty good. I wonder, though, how coincidental is it that WKU brought in Temeka Johnson last year as a coach.Johnson was listed at 5-foot-3, a second team All-American at LSU in 2005. She was drafted in the first round by WNBA Washington, and named rookie of the year.

In 2009, she won a championship ring with Phoenix.

Temeka Johnson even won a community service award in 2009. If there’s a championship role model for very short players, it is she. If there’s any team whose leaders stand to benefit from her experience, it’s Western Kentucky.

In other words, I don’t think her hiring just sorta happened. And in an odd twist, I couldn’t readily find out.

Consult coaches’ career summaries on a team’s roster page. Those summaries are usually too long, padded with the names of notable players who (probably) worked with that coach during practices, plus an associated justification for the hire. For instance, “Coach Shlabotnik was tasked with developing players at this position or that after joining our team in the year such-and-such”.

I expected Temeka Johnson’s biographical notes on Western Kentucky’s roster page to include a suggestion that she was brought in to work with their tiny guards. Without exactly those words, it said Hayes made the Conference USA all-freshmen team, and postseason all-tournament team.

Oregon State beat Western Kentucky 76-52 Saturday.

AJ Marotte had a career best 23 points. When we think of a Beaver guard scoring a bunch of points, it’s Von Oelhoffen, but Saturday she contributed 7 assists and 2 points.

OSU media reported that Raegan Beers has doubled in each game this season, but rebounds come in all kinds of flavors. The boxscore said Beers had 6 offensive rebounds and 7 defensive rebounds. I think the official scorer opted not to count one from an early OSU possession in which Beers rebounded two of her own misses.

Moses Malone used to improve his floor position by bouncing passes to himself off the board. Whether those were counted as FGA and OR, I don’t know.

One of the rules of basketball that frequently irks me is a ball out of bounds going against the side that last touched it.

Which means a player chasing a loose ball over the line might have three options:

1) Without a handle on the ball, the player volleys it back into play and hopes for the best;

2) With a handle on the ball, the player might turn her head to spot an open teammate, and make a pass. Since she’s flying out of bounds, this can result in highlight reel plays.

One of the most spectacular plays I remember was Taurasi chasing a loose ball over the baseline corner, turning her shoulders to fling a pass across the halfline on the opposite sideline, where Jen Derevjanik on the run touchpassed the ball over an opponent’s head to Cappie Pondexter ahead of the play for the fastbreak layup.

In the boxscore, that’s 2 points for Pondexter, but nothing for Taurasi’s incredible leap-turn-pass-to-the-opposite-freaking-halfline or Derevjanik’s bump over the defender and in Pondexter’s stride.

Maybe the scorer credited Derevjanik with an assist. Hockey gets that right by crediting assists to two players.

That stands out as the most memorable highlight in my experience, which leads us to the third option;

3) Flinging the ball hard off an opponent’s feet.

I think this is crap, but there’s no better way to award possession on a ball gone out of play.

It turns basketball into dodgeball. In dodgeball, the ball comes at you, you get out of the way. Unless you can catch it, after which your team has stole possession and initiative.

This came to mind after Kelsey Rees made two such plays on consecutive Oregon State possessions. In the first, Rees tracked a loose ball into the corner, with two WKU defenders coming. Kelsey turned, making contact with no foul call, though that Hilltopper was knocked down over the baseline. Losing her balance and seeing no help on the way, Rees threw the ball off the floored player’s butt to save the possession for the Beavers.

12 points, 9 rebounds, 2 blocks, 0 turnovers. Rees looks happy, and I’m glad she found a place, though I still question her leaving Utah when a deep postseason run is in the cards.

Brigham Young 68
Utah 87

In Utah’s toughest game since Baylor (I still want to ask Coach Roberts about Eastern Kentucky, against whom Utah scored 117, but I maintain they’ve been best on the holiday schedule), the Utes assisted on 26 of 31 made field goals.

That’s always the first thing I look at, getting around to assists-to-turnovers. The boxscore said Utah made 11 turnovers, which gave me the feeling the scorer and I watched different games.

I thought both teams looked a little out of control, which I would’ve ascribed to both teams playing to the crowd.

So I’m opting to hold back until this week’s road trip. I suspect Utah will play South Carolina more than once, with the first serving as a barometer for the non-conference segment.

That we might head east to Philadelphia and Uncasville short-handed weighs very heavy on my mind, which is why I’m writing this 12 hours later than I’d planned.

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