Utah State Women’s Basketball falls to Wyoming at home
On Saturday, Jan 24, Utah State Women’s Basketball suffered a loss against the University of Wyoming Cowgirls. The final score of the game was 74-56.
The Aggies led for the first 9:33 until the Cowgirls tied the score 9-9. After this tie, Utah State never got the lead again. The second quarter of the game was the Aggies’ lowest-scoring quarter, where they only scored eight points against Wyoming’s 19. In this quarter, Utah State had its first major scoring drought of three minutes. The team was struggling to hit shots. In the last 2:50 before the half, the Aggies didn’t score a single field goal.
After the half, Utah State came back with some aggression. Scoring 21 points to the Cowgirls’ 20 points, they started to make some headway into Wyoming’s lead. Guard Aaliyah Gayles came into the half with a lot of energy, with eight points, four assists, three turnovers and a steal, keeping the game’s intensity high. In addition to Gayles, Karyn Sanford fought back in the half. She had 10 points, which helped keep the Aggies’ motivation up.
“We’re trying to disrupt people a lot more,” Gayles said. “We’re trying to be the aggressors.”
This aggression was clear with Utah State’s strong defense. In this game, they had nine turnovers and eight stops, helping them break up Wyoming’s lead.
Because of recent injuries that have taken out Marina Asensio and others, the team is not at full capacity. Because of this, both Sanford and Gayles have had to step up as leaders. Every member of the team has stepped up to the challenge the recent injuries have presented.
“It’s just been very difficult for us, and our freshmen are having to step up. Our young players are having to step up,” said head coach Wesley Brooks. “We’re not quite ready yet. We’re trying to grow them up, but it’s just not quite there yet. And so, we got to keep fighting.”
With the team’s recent struggles, they have been working to stay positive.
“This has been one bad break out the other. What I’ve been trying to tell us is we’ll grow out of this. We’re going to learn from this. We’re not going to quit. We’re going to stay positive,” Brooks said. “We’re going to play the process, and if we do process things right, things will eventually turn, not turning as fast as I want, but they will eventually.”
As Brooks thinks about his team’s development, he focuses on what they can do better moving forward.
“You have to find positives,” he said. “You can’t be negative and expect to grow.”
Sanford is focused on building a positive team environment, something she believes will help the team’s performance.
“Today in the warm-up, I was trying to hold people accountable when it came to people not being positive, people not talking, people not clapping, and so everybody’s trying to do their part,” Sanford said. “Sometimes, we need to be more of a player-led team, and we can’t expect the coaches to have this negative energy or the positive energy. We just have to do it ourselves.”