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Show 6 Tuesday January 14, 2014 SPORTS UPCOMING SPORTS EVENTS THURSDAY: Men's Basketball Utah vs. USC 8 p.m. Huntsman Center GYMNASTICS Red Rocks suffer falls, injuries Griffin Adams ASST. SPORTS EDITOR FRIDAY: Women's Basketball While Utah wound up with the fourth-best score in the nation last weekend, two uncharacteristic falls on bars by veteran leaders Corrie Lothrop and Nansy Damianova were a lowlight. Damianova credited her fall to firstmeet nerves. "I find that every year, the first meet always stresses me out the most," she said. "You just are getting back out there, and you kind of need another meet to get used to it. I felt pretty confident, but seeing Corrie fall in front of me did put a little more pressure on me. I've been in situations where I've been more nervous than this. I just didn't adjust as much as I should have, and I know what my mistake was." Although two falls is concerning, cohead coach Megan Marsden is not too worried about the situation, especially because Lothrop is just coming back from injury. "I think there's a chance that Corrie is feeling a little bit of pressure to come back and instantly being her old self of being a rock and competitor," Marsden said. "She had a miss at Red Rocks Preview and may have let that get in her head a little bit. When you start thinking that way, sometimes that is exactly the way it will go. Knowing her, she's going to get this figured out and be fine." Utah @Washington 7 p.m. Seattle, Wash. Gymnastics Utah @ California 7p.m. Berkeley, Calif. SATURDAY: Men's Basketball Utah vs. UCLA 2 p.m. Huntsman Center (POLL) TOP 25 MEN'S BASKETBALL RANK 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 25. www.dailyutahchronicle.com TEAM Arizona Syracuse Wisconsin Michigan St. Wichita St. Villanova Florida Iowa St. Oklahoma St. San Diego St. Ohio St. Baylor Kentucky Iowa Kansas UMass Memphis Louisville Cincinnati Creighton Colorado Pittsburgh Duke Saint Louis (t) Oklahoma (t) UCLA Losing Lopez Undoubtedly the most unfortunate thing to occur Saturday was the Achilles' heel injury sustained by junior Kassandra Lopez. She is expected to miss the entire season. "It's a big bummer," Marsden said. "She's competed well for us for two years but never had a complete preseason because of minor injuries. This year, she finally had a full preseason and was primed to have a breakout year. To get rewarded with that for a great preseason is a bummer." Unfortunately, the team has gone through situations like this before — they lost two All-Americans last year in Lothrop and Kailah Delaney — and knows how to deal with it. "Definitely heartbreaking," said fellow junior Tory Wilson. "She was going to have a fantastic year, and we are all sad about it, but we still have the rest of the season to go, and we need to not focus on that and move forward." BRENT LIBERTY/The Daily Utah Chronicle See GYMNASTICS page 8 Baely Rowe competes on the beam at the Red Rocks' first meet of the season at the Huntsman Center. MEN'S BASKETBALL COLUMN Utes flounder in Washington NCAA focus Ryan Miller STAFF WRITER The Utes were feeling pretty good about themselves a week ago. They had just obtained their first conference victory and had taken a Top io team into overtime, all in a span of three days. Oh, how quickly things change. Utah made two visits to the state of Washington last week and returned home with a pair of losses. What's more disturbing is the fact that the Ute offense was nearly non-existent in those two games. "It was a rough road trip for us, losing a couple close ball games," said head coach Larry Krystkowiak. "We are struggling to score the ball, and we seemed to be a little bit out of sync. We had a combination of taking some bad shots, we didn't screen certain possessions, turned it over on other possessions, guys being wide open and not being able to feed the post, and getting the ball stolen. It was a lot of different elements, but I think it's safe to say that our defense is ahead of our offense." Utah's offensive woes were on full display in the second half of Sunday's game against Washington State as it shot 4-of-2o from the field, including an o-of-9 performance from deep. "I think we are playing hard defensively, but I don't think we are playing very hard offensively," Krystkowiak said. "I think we are a soft team offensively. I'm a big believer in 'you get what you deserve.' If we run things harder and crisper and set better screens, shoot- on stars, not Top 10 teams ing slumps won't be something we're talking about." Even with the recent offensive struggles, the Utes expect the offense will improve this week in a couple of home games. Junior guard Delon Wright said the team is not lacking confidence, and he thinks Utah isn't far-off from returning to its winning ways. "We are so close to winning, we just have to tweak some minor things and go back to the practice gym and work things out," Wright said. Sports Editor Lenz injured Utah big man Renan Lenz sprained his ankle early in the Washington State loss and did not return. The Utes are expecting the senior to miss at least this week's games against USC and UCLA and most likely more. "Whenever you sprain your ankle that bad, you're talking about tearing some ligaments," Krystkowiak said. "It's somewhat self-healing, but it's probably going to be a while before he's back. Ankle sprains are different for different people, and he's typically been a fast healer." Lenz is averaging 6.6 points per game and 3.1 rebounds per game this season and has started 13 contests. Searching for a leader In the first half against Washington State, Utah found itself up by 12 before a late Cougar run cut the lead to five at halftime. The Utes had a chance to put the game away early, but instead they See BASKETBALL page 8 t the beginning of every week, I hop on espn.com to see which Top 25 men's college basketball games are on the schedule for the next seven days. As I've done so this season, I've noticed an interesting pattern that I've subconsciously adopted. It's no secret that this year's freshmen crop of college basketball players is the strongest in recent memory. Duke's Jabari Parker, Andrew Wiggins of Kansas and Kentucky's Julius Randle are all surefire Top 5 picks in this year's NBA Draft. With the hometown (and admittedly my favorite pro sports team) Utah Jazz being bad this season, it's probable they will end up with one of these players next season, so it's fun to see the type of player they will be getting. As I peruse the coming days' schedule, it's these players whose teams I'm specifically looking for. The interesting thing about it, though, is that the Blue Devils, Jayhawks and Wildcats aren't even that great this season. In this week's AP Top 25 poll, released Monday, Kentucky is No. 13, Kansas is A CHRIS AYERS/The Daily Utah Chronicle Brandon Taylor drives to the basket against Texas State at the Huntsman Center. See MCDONALD page 8 |
