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Show DAILY UTAH CHRONICLE Friday, November 2, 2012 7 WOMEN'S BASKETBALL MEN'S BASKETBALL Utes beat Concordia by 54 in season opener Players not planning on taking SFU game lightly Michael Smith missed some easy shots, but that's not always controllable. What we can control is our effort." Wicijowski said the man-to-man defense Concordia employed allowed her to develop a post presence early in the first half, but once the Cavaliers switched to zone defense, the perimeter game opened up for Utah. "I just wanted to play hard and execute the stuff we've been doing," Wicijowski said. Although Rodrigues was satisfied with her personal effort on offense, even after a 54-point blowout victory, she was not excited about her all-around effort. "Defensively, I felt like I could have done better for my team," Rodrigues said. "I got caught up without jumping to the ball and being in the wrong places and losing vision." Even if Rodrigues wasn't entirely satisfied with her performance on defense, the Utes played well, as they out-rebounded the Cays 59-39 and forced 20 turnovers while only surrendering seven. The Utah defense was stifling, as it forced Concordia to shoot just t9 percent from the floor. Utah finished with 15 steals, which led to i8 fast break points. "We don't run very much on misses," Levrets said. "We're not a pressure man-toman defense, but we feel our defense gets better as the game goes on and the pressure of 40 minutes of defense causes turnovers." From start to finish, the Utes passed the ball extremely efficiently, which allowed them to find easy shots all game long both from in the paint as well as from the outside. Rodrigues was certainly impressed with the team effort on the offensive end. "This group of girls is incredible," she said. "We love to share the ball, and it was just really good ball movement that carried over from practice." In reality, the first half was summed up in one moment. Down 14-4, Concordia coach Aaron Christian called time-out and went berserk, throwing down his clipboard and ripping into his team for playing without energy and passion. After the time-out, the Utes didn't let up, and the passion that the Cavaliers might have gained from Christian's speech was moot. In the first half, Utah shot 45 percent en route to a commanding 51-22 halftime lead. Christian's voice was hoarse by the time the first frame was over, as there was just too much for him to yell about. In the second half, the Utes raced out with a 13-o run and didn't allow Concordia to score for the first five minutes and six seconds. The 29-point halftime lead slowly swelled as the game wore on. Utah outscored the Cavaliers in the paint 58-6 and the bench scored 24 of its 90 points. The Utes outscored Concordia by 25 in the second half, sealing the 54-point victory. Up next for Utah is a road matchup Nov. io with the University of Denver. m.smith@chronicle.utah.edu Twitter: @smithmichael8 STAFF WRITER As far as first impressions go, the Utes know how to make a good one. In its season-opening exhibition game Thursday night at the Huntsman Center, Utah crushed the Concordia Cavaliers, 9o-36. As one would expect from a PacI2 team facing a Division II opponent, the Utes dominated from start to finish, led by the early post presence of Taryn Wicijowski and the outside shooting of Iwalani Rodrigues. Wicijowski finished with 19 points, 15 of which came in the first half, as she imposed her will on the Cavaliers' defense. Rodrigues went four-for-eight from behind the arc and finished with a gamehigh 21 points. "I loved our effort," said Utah head coach Anthony Levrets. "We played hard. We SPENCER SANDSTROM/The Daily Utah Chronicle Freshman guard Danielle Rodriguez delivers the ball to the hoop over Concordia's Kelly Huey at the Huntsman Center on Thursday during their exhibition game against Concordia. The Utes defeated the Cavaliers with a final score of 90-36. L tWidr6i 'ermaltweeted MIgnnfitter Donate plasma today and earn up to $300 a month! Who knew I could earn money, save lives, and get free wi-fi at the same time? Ryan McDonald ASST. SPORTS EDITOR Most teams don't put a lot of stock into exhibition games, as they are often a game against a far inferior opponent. The Utes, however, aren't shrugging off tonight's exhibition against Division II Simon Fraser University as a glorified practice, and for good reason. Utah opened up last season in embarrassing fashion with an exhibition loss to Adams State. Although it didn't affect the Utes' overall record, it preceded a lowly six-win season, something the Utes hope to avoid this year. Most of last season's Utes are gone, but it has yet to be seen whether Utah can handle an opponent that should be a huge underdog. Aside from avoiding disappointment, getting away from intrasquad scrimmages will give the Utes a better chance to see what the team is made of. "Most importantly, we are a group that still needs to learn to play together," said assistant coach Tommy Connor. "We need to look out there and find out what combinations work well together and we need to find out who, when the lights are on, are going to bring what we've been practicing. The exhibition and all that, we look at it as a game that we're gonna come out and try to work on what we've been doing and play as hard as we can." Perhaps the most notable wrinkle to appear in Utah's game plan since the team's intrasquad scrimmage Oct. 24 is the increased use of freshman Jordan Loveridge at small forward. The plan at the outset of camp was to use him primarily at power forward, but the emergence of big men Dallin Bachynski and Renan Lenz, along with the injury to small forward Aaron Dotson, has caused head coach Larry Krystkowiak to try using Loveridge more on the wing in order to maximize the team's talent level. "It just gives a little bit different versatile lineup, more size and energy and rebounding," Krystkowiak said. "All the bigs have been doing a pretty good job and it makes sense to move a guy [like Jordan] from the [power forward] to the [small forward]." Though Loveridge has worked hard throughout the preseason to learn the power forward position, he has had prior experience at small forward. He said the biggest adjust- .7 Tm 3 2 CHAD ZAVALA/The Daily Utah Chronicle Freshman forward Jordan Loveridge goes for a layup over a fellow teammate at the intrasquad scrimmage at the Huntsman Center. ment to the change of position is on the defensive end, where he will be called upon to guard more athletic players than at power forward. Although the Utes and the Clan play on different levels of competition, their seasons a year ago were quite similar. Utah went 6-25 overall and 3-15 in conference play. SFU, which is the first Canadian team approved by the NCAA, also went 3-15 in conference play en route to an 8-i8 overall record. The Clan's top three scorers from last year departed, making senior guard Matt Raivio SFU's top returning scorer. In just 10 games last season, Raivio averaged 11.6 points, 4.1 rebounds and 3.4 assists per game. 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