No. 8 Utes women outlast No. 3 Cardinal, share regular season Pac-12 championship

SALT LAKE CITY — The eighth-ranked Utes needed a stop with just over two minutes left to play.

Seconds prior, Stanford's Cameron Brink, a favorite for the Pac-12 Player of the Year award and Cardinal all-time block leader, had just made a layup to make it a 1-point game. Utah had controlled a 12-point lead in the third quarter, but the third-ranked Stanford refused to go down without a fight.

Utah had coach Lynne Roberts called a timeout to settle the team and to plan the finish.

Immediately out of the timeout, sophomore Gianna Kneepkens drained a 3-pointer, her fifth of the day, and Utah's lead was back up to four. But there was still too much time left on the clock against one of the best team's in the country.

So Utah went to work and got three consecutive stops — a Kennady McQueen steal, a Jenna Johnson steal, and then Kneepkens drew a charging foul against Haley Jones for her fifth and final of the day — to take a 9-point lead with 27 seconds left to play after the Utes made five of their last six free throws.

Each stop added more fuel to an already electric atmosphere in the Huntsman Center with an announced attendance of 9,611. And when the final buzzer sounded, Utah had secured an 84-78 win and a share of the regular season Pac-12 title.

"We've been working hard to make this a championship program, and we did," Roberts said to the Huntsman Center crowd that stayed to watch the team celebrate their championship, which included cutting down the net and hoisting up the Pac-12 trophy.

It was moment that Roberts said she'd been waiting for since she accepted the head coaching job in 2015.

"To create something you've got to have a vision, and I did envision it," Roberts said. "And sometimes people told me I was crazy to think that it was possible, but I knew it was, and incredibly satisfying for it to happen."

Kneepkens led the way for the Utes (25-3, 15-3 Pac-12) with a game-high 28 points, which included that late 3-pointer to stave off a 6-0 Stanford (27-4, 15-3 Pac-12) run. The sophomore guard kept her team engaged and went 5-of-9 from 3-point range, with each seemingly bigger than the last to keep Utah afloat.

"It's incredible, and just the trust coach Rob has in me and all of us, I think that's why we also do so well, because we don't have to play tentative out there; we can just play free," Kneepkens said. "It was awesome, and having that crowd just elevated it, like, infinity."

Kneepkens wasn't alone in the fight but was a steadying force in a game that featured 51 fouls between the two teams and put several players on both sides in foul trouble early in the game.

Alissa Pili picked up her third foul with 8:58 left in the second quarter and was limited in her time on the court until she could be better utilized late in the game. Pili added 14 points in her 24 minutes of play, but was forced to be a bit conservative on the defensive end of the ball to avoid fouling out.

But Pili was in the same boat as several other players in the game, including Stanford's Brink, who finished with four fouls and had 14 points and 12 rebounds.

"I just did what I could, really," Pili said. "Getting those three fouls quick kind of slowed me down a little bit, but I knew when I came in, my coach trusted me not to make any more dumb fouls, so I just went out there and just stand with my hands up."

"I thought the officials did a good job," Roberts added. "It's one of those things as coaches and as players, you have to adjust. And it wasn't one-sided type; it was both-sided. It wasn't like one official was calling it tight and the other two weren't. They called a clean game. And some of those calls we didn't like, but that's the nature of the game."

Though Utah outlasted Stanford in the end, it was all Cardinal to start the game. Stanford open up on a 9-0 run and looked to make a statement early, but Utah weathered the storm and went on a 10-0 run of its own to take their first lead of the game. From there, the two teams battled it out on the court before the home team started to pull away in the third quarter.

Roberts said she was proud of her team for not "folding" down the stretch and holding on to secure the program's first-ever win against a team ranked higher than No. 6 in the Associated Press Top 25.

"That was a great game," Robert said. "And I think the reason that it means so much, too, is that we did it beating Stanford. They've been just the elite program, not only in our conference but in the country for years. ... The way they play, the way they compete, and it means more to do this, to beat them. But incredibly proud of my team; that was a good game."

The Cardinal, which split the series with the Utes this season, were led by Hannah Jump's 24 points, which included six made 3-pointers.

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