On night honoring former coach Elaine Elliott, Utah women hold on to beat Cincinnati

SALT LAKE CITY — On the night when the University of Utah honored former women's basketball coach Elaine Elliott — hanging a banner of 582 for the all-time winningest coach — the Utes returned to playing its brand of basketball on their home court.

The Utes played team basketball and had 22 assists on 24 made buckets, and pulled away from a young Cincinnati team to claim a 67-59 win at the Huntsman Center.

"To have 22 assists on 24 made baskets, like that's Utah basketball," Utes head coach Gavin Petersen said. "So really proud of our kids for moving the ball, sharing the ball."

Senior Lani White led the way for the Utes with 23 points on 8-of-14 shooting and six rebounds as the team shot 41% from the field. White was lethal from 3-point range, making six triples on 10 attempts to help the Utes to an 18-point lead in the third quarter.

"I was confident in my shot, but I was trying to just play within our offense, kick out threes, just playing inside-out," White said. "But, yeah, I was just confident in my shot. The rim looked a lot bigger after the first one. I was trying to stay within our system and just hit the normal shots that we always shoot."

Cincinnati (9-17, 4 Big 12) head coach Katrina Merriweather said when White hit her first couple of 3-pointers, she thought, "Oh boy, that's not a good sign."

"I feel like when you have really good players like her, the rim just gets so wide that after those first couple go in, well now she feels like she can make them all and that's what happened, and that's what really good players do," Merriweather said. "I thought we lost her in transition a time or two."

Maty Wilke added 12 points, including two made 3-pointers, four rebounds and four assists as the only other Utah (17-9, 8-6 Big 12) player to finish in double figures.

The Bearcats had three players finish in double figures, with Caliyah DeVillasee leading the way with 13 points and five assists in the loss. Reagan Jackson and Kylie Torrence supplied 10 points apiece to help Cincinnati.

The two teams battled through a tight, but low-scoring game in the first quarter before Utah got into a rhythm on offense and built up at the time an 11-point lead. The Utes continued with that momentum through the third quarter to build up an 18-point lead with about three minutes left to play.

Cincinnati refused to quit, though, and took advantage of a casual state of play for Utah. The Bearcats eventually cut the Utes lead to 5 points midway through the fourth quarter. But Utah held firm to keep the advantage and the win.

White said the team gets "comfortable" and "casual" at times, which has allowed teams to come back on the Utes this season — much like how Cincinnati did Saturday night.

"We see the scoreboard and we're like, 'We're good.' But we know the Big 12 is not a conference where you can take any night off, and most of these teams are not just going to give you the win," White said. "It's simple as that. ... It's not because we have a young group, it's just because we get comfortable and casual with that scoreboard, and that's not Utah basketball."

Petersen added that the mindset from his team has shifted from "playing to win to playing not to lose."

"We've got to it figure out, like, no, we play to win," he said. "Man, I don't care what the score is, don't care how much time is left, we are playing to win."

In the end, Utah did a little better job of playing to win down the stretch after giving up its lead.

"I thought that every time that we made a mistake, Utah did a great job of taking advantage of it," Merriweather said. "Came up with big plays, made big shots, and ultimately, that's what got the win down the stretch."

Part of that success was Utah's ability to get out on run after a Cincinnati miss or takeaway. Utah managed 17 fastbreak points to put pressure on the visiting team.

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