With high rank, Utah women found it difficult to schedule resume-building games

SALT LAKE CITY — The University of Utah women's basketball team's contest Tuesday evening at Baylor is critical.

Critical in the sense that, for a Utes program believing it can still be playing deep into March, if not April, this true road game against a perennial national contender will serve as an early-season litmus test to see where it stands with a veteran cast returning from last season's Sweet 16 qualifier.

To get this top-25 matchup locked in, though, it took a lot of doing, certainly more than Utes head coach Lynne Roberts and associate head coach Gavin Petersen would have liked. The old college basketball cliche that the better you get, the less teams are willing to schedule you certainly applies here.

Now in his 11th season as an assistant under Roberts — nine at Utah and two before that at Pacific — Petersen is her chief scheduler.

Petersen generally has his nonconference schedule finished, meaning all contracts executed, by April or May. This particular schedule took him until early or mid August, a byproduct of Utah's 27-win 2023 season, since everyone of consequence from that team returned, and therefore fewer teams were willing to play the Utes.

Enter the WNIT.

Utah was originally contracted by the WNIT to play three games, two at the Huntsman Center and, assuming two wins, Tuesday's clash with Baylor, for which the Utes agreed to go on the road for. The first two opponents were pending, but Petersen had penciled in those games for Nov. 9 and 11.

In late July, the folks running the WNIT called Utah with a problem. They couldn't come up with two opponents willing to play the Utes at the Huntsman Center.

The end result became the WNIT producing South Carolina State, which Utah scheduled for Nov. 9 and the Baylor game staying on Tuesday. Both matchups remain under the WNIT umbrella. The hole that Petersen found himself with on Nov. 11 was later filled by NAIA Carroll College, which will visit Salt Lake City on Nov. 28.

It may have been messy, but keeping Baylor on the schedule should be viewed as a huge net positive.

"We wanted to schedule even more of that, but we couldn't get games," Roberts told KSL.com. "When I got here (in 2015-16), the phone was ringing off the hook with people wanting to play us; and now, it was the hardest, most-challenging year ever. It was just a scramble, but yeah, a good problem to have.

"We wanted to make it as competitive as possible because I think we need to be tested and fail a little bit. Not necessarily a loss, but have things not go well."

Added Petersen: "It was very difficult. The teams that showed any interest had a really hefty asking price that did not make sense for us. We had to test the market and as time dwindled, our options were limited. We had to fill in a game with Carroll College and thank goodness that they're available and willing to come play us."

Roberts and Petersen's general scheduling philosophy is to gear up early with games perceived to be winnable, mostly at the Huntsman Center, before diving into something tougher. Petersen let out a bit of a laugh when reminiscing on 2019-20, when Utah went away from that philosophy, losing both ends of a season-opening road trip at Cincinnati and Xavier.

There is none of that this season.

Petersen is well-aware that overextending yourself as a Pac-12 program in November and December makes little sense since the majority of conference games are going to be Quadrant 1 and 2 opportunities. The idea is to get the early ramp up with winnable games, sprinkle in a couple of early Q1 and Q2 opportunities, and make the rest another handful of winnable games.

With this particular team, the notion of sprinkling in a couple of early Q1 and Q2 opportunities has ratcheted it up. Beyond Baylor, Utah will face No. 1-ranked South Carolina on Dec. 10 as part of a Basketball Hall of Fame sponsored tripleheader at Mohegan Sun Arena in Connecticut. Utah-South Carolina is the middle game, following Florida State-UCLA and preceding the headliner, UConn-North Carolina.

The Hall of Fame reached out to Utah midway through last season to gauge interest in playing a one-off game on a neutral floor 2,300 miles from home. There wasn't much hesitation with that plan, nor was there much hesitation with the opponent.

"We were definitely interested, knowing that we were returning a lot of our key players," Petersen said. "We're gonna have a great senior class, great upperclassmen, so why not test yourself against a team like that? We have a lot to learn in terms of being on that stage, getting comfortable with it. It's going to really give us a glimpse into playing in March, whether that's in the Pac-12 Tournament, or in the first, second round (of the NCAA Tournament), and beyond.

"It was definitely a no-brainer. They were a little worried that we might not want to play South Carolina, but we thought it was a win-win. We win, great. We lose, OK, it's at that point in the season and we still have games after that to get ready for conference play. So it's a great experience, and we get to go back east to play in a WNBA arena where the Connecticut Sun play. It's a cool deal for kids."

The South Carolina matchup is still a little ways off, so here's something to consider for right now. Utah's short-term schedule isn't easy.

Utah traveled to Dallas Monday ahead of playing Baylor Tuesday. The Utes will fly home Wednesday, spend a day in Salt Lake City, then travel Friday to Alaska to play in the Great Alaska Shootout, a four-team MTE that will be a homecoming for Anchorage native Alissa Pili.

That event will be Saturday-Sunday, and that's only because, according to Petersen, the University of Alaska Anchorage as hosts graciously moved the event off its planned Friday-Saturday schedule. Helping Utah out with the days, of course, makes sense given that Pili will be the main attraction.

UAA tried to get Utah to the Great Alaska Shootout last season once Pili committed out of the transfer portal, but it didn't work out.

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