Kennady McQueen does a little bit of everything for the Utah women’s basketball team.
“She plays through pain. She jumps in for rebounds. She dives on the floor,” Ute guard Gianna Kneepkens said.
“That kid does everything we ask,” added head coach Gavin Petersen, “whether that’s guarding the opponent’s best player, coming off screens and ready to shoot, to spotting up. She’s just capable of doing so much.”
And nobody has done it more often for the Utes.
On Saturday, McQueen played her 139th game for Utah, tying a program record. Rachel Messer played 139 games for the Utes from 2009 to 2013.
She scored 17 points to go along with four assists, two rebounds and a steal in the Utes’ 92-65 win in Cincinnati.
“It’s really cool for her to achieve a legacy stat like that being a Utah kid,” Petersen said of McQueen, who starred at South Summit High. “… I’m just so glad that she’s in a Utah uniform. She’s left her legacy and her mark on this program and she’ll never be forgotten.”
Kneepkens praised her senior teammate as someone she looks up to on and off the court.
“I’ve loved playing with Ken,” she said. “It’s sad that it’s kind of coming to an end here.”
Utah (21-6) has just two regular season games remaining. The Utes play at West Virginia on Wednesday before returning home to take on rival BYU on March 1 at the Huntsman Center.
“These seniors that will be recognized at our next home game absolutely, 100 percent turned the direction this program was going,” Petersen said of McQueen and her classmates. “It would be really cool to see Salt Lake City come out and support them because without them our program is not in the position we’re in now.”
