Utes focus on foe ignore milestone
February 9th, 2008, 3:03 am Hobbies Ideas
Utah is taking this focus thing pretty seriously.
The 20th-ranked Utes have their sights set on today’s game with Air Force and very little else. Word that a victory over the Falcons would make them the first team in Mountain West Conference history to win 100 league games in women’s basketball came as news to head coach Elaine Elliott.
“I didn’t know that. I don’t know about that stuff. It will always mean something in retrospect, but it’s not important on Saturday,” she said. “Those things are all good as acknowledgments of success the way people understand success to be in numbers, wins and losses. I get that it is big. It’s great. I’m so proud that it’s our program.
“It has nothing to do with Saturday. Saturday is about preparing and trying to play well again,” Elliott continued.
The Utes have won 14 consecutive games, including all eight in the first rotation of conference play. The latter began with a 60-50 win at Air Force on Jan. 9.
After beating every team in the league once, Utah is expecting things to be a little tougher the second time around.
“Teams are going to be gunning for us,” said junior Morgan Warburton. “Everybody wants to beat Utah. We’ve just got to remember that everybody’s going to play better. We’ve just got to match their intensity and do it a little bit better.”
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Teammate Leilani Mitchell agrees.
“The first time around was tough, and I know that they are going to make some different adjustments, and we just really need to be ready for anything they throw at us,” said the senior point guard. “We are the team to beat and people are going to come after us … It’s going to be tough. So we just have to play hard.”
Consistency is something Elliott has preached all season long. Things, however, have changed. The Utes never lived up to their preseason billing as a fifth-place team.
“It’s a different role now in that regard. People will look at us differently,” said Elliott. “We understand that and have tried to be sure that we simply accept that it’s different for how they feel and not how we prepare. That’s been our focus.”
Utah’s seasonlong approach hasn’t wavered.
“We have to prepare the same way for every team,” said Warburton. “This conference is tough. You never know what’s going to happen, and if you let down for one second something can happen. So we’ve just got to keep doing what we’re doing.”
GAME NOTES: Fans who wear pink will be admitted free as part of a “Think Pink” promotion for breast cancer awareness … At the midway point in conference play, the Utes hold a two-game lead over Wyoming and TCU … Utah is 99-25 in MWC games since the league was formed in 1999.
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