Road sweet road? Utah Valley women find recent trip sparking current run

OREM — Home sweet home wasn't the case for Utah Valley women's basketball.

Instead, a recent series of road trips has propelled the Wolverines into the top half of the Western Athletic Conference with five games remaining — and a shot at a top-four seed in the conference tournament in Las Vegas.

Maria Carvalho poured in 22 points, five rebounds and four assists, and Josie Williams added 18 points and 11 rebounds Wednesday to help Utah Valley women's basketball to their third-straight win 75-53 over Tarleton State in the Lockhart Arena in Orem.

Megan Jensen supplied 11 points and six rebounds off the bench for Utah Valley, which shot 53% from the field and outrebounded the Texans 36-25 in their seventh win in the last 10 games.

What's more surprising? Four of those wins have come on the road, including a crucial back-to-back road sweep of Grand Canyon and New Mexico State last week.

"We got together after some frustrating losses, and honestly, they couldn't avoid me," Nielson said, half-joking. "My line I always tell them is, 'if you want me to quit saying it, then start doing it.' And I genuinely feel like we've started doing a lot of things. Practices have gone quicker, too, because I don't talk as much."

With a series of injuries including former Timpview star Shay Fano, former Skyridge standout Ally Blackham and BYU transfer Babalu Stewart, Utah Valley got out to a fast start against the visiting Texans (13-11, 5-8 WAC). At the same time the men's team was battling to a 69-56 road win at Tarleton, the women's team jumped out to a leads of 19-12 after the first quarter and 38-25 in a game the Wolverines never trailed.

Former Mountain View star Tahlia White capped a 16-2 run to push Utah Valley's lead to a game-high 27, 54-27 with 4:37 left in the third, and the hosts never looked back.

Before the spurt, the Wolverines were anything but rolling. Utah Valley lost six in a row as late as mid-January — and also had two games postponed due to COVID-19 — while spinning a three-game losing skid to Abilene Christian, Tarleton and California Baptist to open WAC play.

But after edging in-state rival Dixie State 68-65 in St. George, everything changed. All of a sudden, the Wolverines — who made their first NCAA Tournament appearance in program history a year ago against top-seeded Stanford — have been (mostly) rolling ever since, since for a double-overtime loss at Lamar, a frustrating 69-66 home loss to Sam Houston State, and a 68-53 setback to league-leading Stephen F. Austin.

"I think it's been a better buy-in. You can feel them adjust to what needs to be done to win," Nielson said. "It's coach-speak, but the buy-in has been there. I feel like they are playing together, with the purpose of winning, and not just for themselves.

"We're down to so few people that everyone has to be on it and ready to go. It's frustrating, to some point — but it really has been next person up. I think it's been the key to our success, as well as attention to detail, and our defense."

With the win, the Wolverines are just two games behind Cal Baptist and Grand Canyon in the WAC standings, tied with Abilene Christian and Sam Houston.

"Obviously, we're not going to catch Stephen F. Austin; I'm not sure anyone can," Neilson said. "But we need to get as good of a seed as possible (for the WAC Tournament) and peak at the right time.

"It's just been consistency. Our shootaround today was really good, kids are coming in and watching extra details. It's easy when you're losing to find things to work on — and now we can't fall back into that track, and just find things to improve."

The Wolverines host Dixie State at 2 p.m. Saturday at Lockhart Arena. After the in-state rivalry comes road games at Seattle and CBU, followed by home dates with Grand Canyon and New Mexico State to end the regular season March 3-5.

Related topics