Utah falls short of Elite 8 in LSU loss
This has been a season of first for the University of Utah women's basketball team tonight. The number two seed youths competed at the highest level against the number three seed LSU Tigers. They fell short, but accomplished a lot. Oh, it was so short. What a game. Fox 13 sports reporter Andrea Urban is in Greenville, South Carolina tonight with reaction from the players after that loss. Absolute heartbreak.
There's really no other way to slice it, but this University of Utah women's basketball team has been historic. Jenna Johnson missed two key free throws late in the game, but her team is behind her like they've been all season long. They told me it doesn't come down to just two points. It's like it's tough and I J.J. will probably knock herself for that, but I mean in the first second quarter I missed two. So I know other people miss a lot of free throws, so it comes down to a lot of plays in the game.
It doesn't just amount to that one. It just doesn't come down to one play, even though Jenna's going to feel like that. Anyone in that position would have felt like that. She played an amazing game, really made it hard for Angel Reese and she played her butt off on defense. How are you doing right now? I know that was a lot. How are you doing? I mean, obviously bummed we lost. I'm competitive and want to win, but Pellis, you played great and we just battled so hard this season, so I'm just proud of us and hopefully with time, you know, I'll get better perspective.
What is something that you liked about your team play this game? Just how tough we were out there. We hit the boards. We knew they were a good rebounding team and that was something that was going to keep us in the game. So we focused on that and just, you know, being tough and not, you know, taking pride in defending. I think that we just bought into the scout and what we were supposed to do. They just ended up making more plays than we did, but I'm really proud of how we executed our defensive plan. And I think we made it hard for them down low and even on the outside.
Obviously, it didn't end the way we wanted it to, but it's exciting because we can get back to work this summer and we get another opportunity next year. I can't even put it into words just how much we've accomplished this season and we set out and got our goal. That's definitely not where we wanted to stop, but it is what it is and LSU is a great team and I thought we played good enough to beat them. We were there right till the end. It's probably really hard to see the positives in any of this, especially when it was such a close game and that's the end of our season. But I think in a couple days, we can really step back and look at what we've done and achieved this season. I'm just really proud of it.
The sweet 16 was their goal and they hit that goal, but they wanted to go further. I have no doubt that this team will be back on this stage very soon. In Greenville, South Carolina, Andrea Urban, Fox 13 News, Utah.
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