Women’s basketball looks for redemption
After Tuesday night’s loss, the Utah State University women’s basketball team will have the chance to redeem itself in a tournament held at Snow College this weekend.
The Aggies played Thursday and will be playing today and Saturday which will give them a second chance at the two teams that defeated them last week, Snow and Salt Lake Community College.
Realistically, Head Coach Chalyce Stevens said the Aggies simply plan on giving Snow and SLCC a good game.
Right now, Stevens said, expecting to win could be too high of a goal since two starters, Katie Kimball and Michelle Dyreng, who are coaches for the women’s basketball team at Skyview High School, will be missing. Kimball and Dyreng also missed Tuesday’s game against SLCC because of their coaching jobs.
But it wasn’t the missing players that caused USU to lose against SLCC, Stevens said, the full-court press was the number one factor in Tuesday’s game.
The Aggies had 30 turnovers against SLCC, Stevens said, and most of them were caused by the full-court press.
Working at applying the full-court press in practice is the best way for the Aggies to defend against the press, Stevens said. Until the Aggies learn how to use it, she said, there is no way they can stop it.
But the Aggies were able to get a press started for themselves, Stevens said, even though it was short lived.
“Towards the end of the first half we were starting to break it [the press by SLCC] really well, and we put a press on ourselves that made them cause a lot of turnovers,” Stevens said.
The press lasted a few minutes into the second half, which caused about 11 turnovers, she said.
“But it’s not about the W’s, it’s about having the opportunity to play,” Stevens said. “It gives the girls an opportunity to play college ball, where other wise they wouldn’t have.”
The most important thing is that the girls have fun, Stevens said, and hopes her team takes that attitude into the tournament.
The Aggies will also have the chance to play the College of Southern Idaho, whom they have never played, in their final game of the tournament.