Hesitate to start this thing off with a quote from a 1980s action television show, especially one with sometimes nonsensical storylines and even more farfetched means to improbable ends, but here goes …
“I love it when a plan comes together.”
That’s what A-Team leader John Hannibal Smith — played by George Peppard — used to famously say in darn near every episode, where a collection of talented, slightly off-center individuals, on the run from the law for a crime they didn’t commit, joined up when called upon by those who found themselves in desperate need of help. The scuffed-up-but-righteous A-Team would arrive in a van to assemble destructive-but-useful weapons out of a ball of yarn, a bottle of Elmer’s glue, a pencil, a roll of masking tape, a box of matches and a can of hairspray.
Maybe some of you remember. I guess they made a movie out of the show some 13 years ago. Either way, Hannibal comes to mind whenever I think of what Lynne Roberts is doing with the Utah women’s basketball team.
The A-Team.
She, too, loves it when a plan — her plan — comes together.
And it is.
When Roberts was hired as the Utes’ coach in 2015, after leading other programs elsewhere, she arrived with farfetched ambitions and improbable goals, aims she never let fade from her view as the seasons rolled on.
“I want to do things that have never been done before,” she said.
Utah women’s hoops had a history of some success, but the top end of that history needed not erasure, rather eclipsing. Roberts was hellbent on doing exactly that — not with yarn and tape and glue and aerosols and a bad plot, but with increased recruiting, capable players, good coaching and aggressive basketball.
She’s called herself a “total nerd,” a “basketball junkie,” who has shelves of books in her office, filled with strategies, with philosophies, with plays, with notes she’s picked up through the years, the best of which she’s applied in the Utes’ ascension toward becoming one of the women’s game’s best teams.
“I’m dreaming big, thinking big,” she once told me. “That’s who I am, trying to be the best.”
She’s working big, too.
There have been ups and downs in that primary pursuit, but last season the Utes won the Pac-12, one of the college game’s premier leagues and went on to subsequent success in the NCAA Tournament, where they were soaring until devilishly defeated in the round of 16 by eventual national champion LSU.
That was a game Utah all but won. All but.
One of the Utes’ stars, Jenna Johnson, missed two free throws with seconds left, Utah down 64-63, and that was the pivotal moment in an outcome that sent the Utes packing and the Tigers on their way to hoisting what would become their trophy.
You probably recall that moment, when the plumbing cruelly spilled over in the sophomore’s eyes, and the players left the court, Roberts hugging Johnson, telling her she was proud of her, that she loved her. Yeah, the Utes remember that. But they’ve also forgotten it, left it in a useful place from which they can learn, without allowing it to get in their way moving forward.
And after an offseason of reflection, of some satisfaction and even more determination, the Utes are moving forward.
In recent days, two Utes have been named preseason all-conference players, Alissa Pili, the reigning Pac-12 Player of the Year, and Gianna Kneepkens. Also, this bit of good news … Johnson was named preseason all-conference honorable mention.
Utah also is the preseason pick to win the Pac-12, again, and why wouldn’t it be? All five of its starters from last season are returning, with the addition of new talent, as well, transfers and recruits. They ranked fourth nationally in scoring and finished in the top 10 in five significant statistical categories. They open their season on Oct. 18 with exhibitions and start in officially the first week of November.
Keep an eye, then, on the Utes. They could be something extraordinary this season. The expectations are now as high as Robert’s ambitions are big.
It looks like her plan is coming together.
Pity the fool who doubts it.
