Utah Hoops: Kind of a Big Day

Feb 12, 2014; Seattle, WA, USA; Stanford Cardinal head coach Johnny Dawkins during the second half between the Washington Huskies and the Stanford Cardinal at Alaska Airlines Arena at Hec Edmundson Pavili. Washington defeated Stanford 64-60. Mandatory Credit: Steven Bisig-USA TODAY Sports

First let me give a shout out to our Women’s Basketball Team.  They lost a tough game to Oregon St. last night in the Pac-12 tournament.  This season was a tough one for women’s hoops after they lost two of their top five players to injuries.  Otherwise it just might have been special.  Michelle Plouffe finished her career at Utah as our all time leading rebounder.  Thank’s for all you did and wish this season could have been what it was supposed to be.

Now on to the men.

Today is the biggest Utah basketball game in quite awhile.  It seems the consensus is that if Utah wants to go to THE BIG DANCE, three more wins will be necessary.  And since today puts us on a second round collision course with UCLA or Arizona in the second round of the Pac-12 tourney, well it’s easy to see how important a win would be.

Stanford has been interesting for the Utes.  After being one of our rare upset wins in our first year, Stanford was the one team we truly were never competitive with last season.  The Cardinal have lost three straight and would be in real bubble trouble with a loss today.

The Cardinal are paced by Chasson Randle and his 18 PPG.

I hesitate to say what will happen today.  Utah uglied their way to a win on Thursday.  I’m not sure we can do that two road games in a row.  But Stanford like Cal is slumping and just might be vulnerable to being uglied.  Or we could have an amazing game.  Or we could stink the place up.

I’m like 90% excited 10% nervous or maybe 90% nervous 10% excited, I don’t know.

So the tip isn’t too far away.  Let’s go see hopefully the thrill of victory and not the agony of defeat.