WBB Preview: Utah State Welcomes Utah To Open Regular Season

Head coach Wes Brooks, sophomore guard Elise Livingston, senior forward Jamisyn Heaton and senior center Sophie Sene are back for another year of Aggie basketball, and they’re joined by a host of new faces.

They will officially tip off the season in the Spectrum against in-state rival Utah on Friday evening but have already taken a few snaps this year. The Aggies went 2-0 in the preseason, picking up exhibition wins against Saint Mary’s and San Francisco State. The first was a 73-64 win on the road, and the second was a 71-40 rout at home.

Utah is coached by Gavin Petersen, who enters his first full season in the role. He was promoted from his post as associate head coach midseason in 2024-25, taking over for Lynne Roberts, who accepted the head coaching job with the LA Sparks. Though newly minted as the head coach, Petersen has plenty of experience. He’s been at Utah for 10 years, six of which were spent under Roberts, and he has over two decades of coaching experience.

Utah earned a 90-56 exhibition win over Western Colorado and is 1-0 on the season after notching an 88-62 win over Sioux Falls on Monday. The Utes, predictably, dominated in nearly all phases of the game. Their starting lineup accounted for 49 points, and the reserves handled the rest. Utah won on the boards 49-27 and had 21 assists on 28 field goals, shooting 28 of 64 from the field and 10 of 32 from deep. The Utes got to the line more than their opponent, as they held USF to 20 free throws and took 26, knocking down 22 of them. They also won on swats with two blocks to one. 

One place where the Utes didn’t excel was the turnover battle. They turned the ball over 17 times while forcing 14 and only nabbed five steals, while Sioux Falls came away with nine swipes. Because of their propensity for assists, their assist-to-turnover ratio was still positive, but 17 turnovers is not a good look and it’s something Utah State and its brand-new defensive coordinator, Anna Kjaerholt, will be looking to exploit.

Other than that, this Utah team doesn’t come with a lot of weaknesses. So far, it doesn’t look much different than Utah teams of the past, which is to say this team is deep, talented, physical, and fast. The Utes have appeared in the last four NCAA tournaments, peaking with a Sweet 16 berth in 2023.

Players To Know

There are a few players to watch out for on this Utah team, which is usually the case in SLC. Based on the win over Sioux Falls, there are plenty of players who can step up and cause problems in one way or another, but we’ll look at a few who are a bit more likely to play a big role against Utah State.

It’s worth keeping an eye on a few others, such as freshmen LA Sneed – who led the team in minutes despite coming off the bench – and Avery Hjelmstad, who scored the second-most points and most off the bench. Utah has plenty of talent, and keeping it in check will be a tough test for the new-look Aggies.

Evelina Otto: The 6-2 freshman out of Latvia made a 15-point statement in her debut. She came up just a rebound short of a double-double, but it won’t take long for her to reach that mark. She scores and grabs boards effectively, and will have plenty of double-digit performances on both fronts. 

In her short college career, she hasn’t met anyone who can outrebound her, and she might not meet many players who can at all. She led the game in both points and rebounds and ended her night after 18 minutes with 15 points, nine rebounds, and two assists while shooting 5 of 7 from the field and 5 of 6 at the stripe.

Reese Ross: Ross, a junior forward from South Dakota, debuted with a well-rounded performance. She put up eight points, five rebounds, three assists and a block in 18 minutes, hitting all three of her shots and both attempts at the line.

The 6-1 junior ended last season with a 7.8 PPG average but notched a season-high of 19 against Arizona State, making the eight points she posted in game one the lower end of her capacity. She shot 50.3 percent from the field and 31.4 percent from deep while also chipping in 5.0 rebounds, 1.2 assists and 0.9 steals in 19.3 minutes per game.

As the Aggies learned last year, she can get going in a hurry. Ross had 14 points, the most off the bench and tied for the second-most on the team, against Utah State a season ago. She also added five rebounds, a steal and a block, all in just 15 minutes of action.

Brooke Walker: Walker, a 5-9 sophomore guard from Andover, Kansas, tied with Maty Wilke to lead the team in assists with four against Sioux Falls. She had nine points on 4-of-4 shooting, one of which came from beyond the arc. She added a rebound and a steal.

Against Utah State last year, Walker had six points, two rebounds, two assists, and a block. She appeared in 30 games during his freshman campaign, averaging 10.4 minutes, 1.8 points, 1.0 rebounds and 0.9 assists per game while shooting 42.6 percent from the field and 20.0 percent from distance.

Maty Wilke: Wilke posted a very similar line to Walker against Sioux Falls. She had nine points, four assists, three rebounds and a steal in 23 minutes. Her efficiency wasn't where she would have liked, converting 3 of 10 tries from the field, 2 of 8 three-pointers and 1 of 2 free throws, but that was an unusually off night for the 5-10 senior.

She played well against the Aggies last year, recording 13 points, four rebounds, two assists and two steals. For the year, the former Wisconsin transfer made 30 appearances with six starts, pitching in 9.2 points, 2.2 rebounds, 2.1 assists and 1.1 steals per contest. Her shooting was rock-solid, connecting on 46.7 percent of her tries from the field, 42.9 percent from beyond the arc and 95.0 percent at the free-throw line.

Stats To Know

It’s early in the season. Utah State hasn’t played a regular season game yet, and Utah has just one. Instead of specific stats, we’ll look at a few broader trends that might play into this game.

Series History: While the schools are known for their rivalry on the football field, dubbed the Battle of the Brothers, the schools share a comprehensive history on the basketball court as well. Between the men’s and women’s teams, they've faced off 135 times.

Although the men haven’t met since 2017, the rivalry reached a new level of bitterness when Utah hired Utah State’s Craig Smith. That street goes both ways on the women's side – Brooks was an assistant at Utah from 2015 to 2017 before stops at Michigan and Ohio State ahead of his arrival at Utah State last season.

The women played annually up until 2017 when both the men's and women's teams stopped playing, but reignited the rivalry last season when Utah State made the trip to Salt Lake City. That game went as many of the others in the series have, and the Aggies lost their fifth in a row. Overall, the Aggies trail Utah 34-4 all-time.

Utah State is on the wrong side of a lopsided rivalry, but it has fared much better at home. All four wins have come at home, where the Aggies have a 4-14 record rather than the 0-19 record on the road. Last year, Utah State lost 87-34. Utah State returners Heaton, Livingston and Sene all started. Heaton was the most productive of the bunch and was the second-leading scorer on the team with seven points, eight rebounds and an assist. Livingston added three points, three rebounds and an assist, and Sene had two points, two rebounds and a steal. 

Heston and Livingston will likely come off the bench in this rematch, but both can be expected to contribute in this game and all year long.

The Utes, in a blowout victory, gave plenty of time to their bench unit in that win a season ago, which will make for some familiar faces this year. Ross and Wilke both scored double digits, and Walker had six points. All three came off the bench but are starters on this year’s squad.

Utah WBB History: Utah is an extremely successful program and has a tradition of success that spans across multiple coaches and conferences. The Utes have seen some historic success in the past few years, and while the current iteration might be a step below its recent high (when it was one of the best teams in the country), it’s a competitive team with high standards and postseason exceptions.

Utah has made the NCAA tournament four years in a row, and in 2022-2023, the Utes reached as high as third in the nation in the AP Poll before finishing the season at No. 8 and losing in the Sweet 16. The following year, they were ranked fifth in the preseason AP Poll, peaked at fourth, and ended the season at No. 22 and lost in the second round.

Last year, they made their Big 12 debut and went 13-5 in conference play, picked up a 22-9 overall record, and peaked at No. 22 in the AP Poll. They earned an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament and lost in the first round.

Utah’s last losing season preceded the successful run it is on now. In 2020-21, the Utes went 5-16, and the year prior, they were 14-17. Those two years are clearly an outlier because the season before that, they went 20-10 and reached as high as No. 14 in the AP poll.

Utah was a founding member of the Mountain West Conference and has only had four losing seasons since starting and joining the league. It didn’t have any in its 12 years in the conference, and all four losing seasons have come in back-to-back spurts, one being the 2019-20 and 2020-21 years and the other in 2013-14 and 2014-15. Outside of that pair of two-season hiccups, the Utes haven’t had a losing season since the 1993-94 campaign when they went 12-14 overall and 9-5 in the WAC. Of course, after that season, they made the NCAA tournament four years in a row.