LAS VEGAS — There’s a reason Utah’s Michelle Plouffe was the Mountain West Conference women’s Freshman of the Year.
After hitting a similar, end-of-times buzzer-beater against BYU in the semifinals, Plouffe hit a two-point jumper with 24 seconds left in overtime to lift the fifth-seeded Utah women’s basketball team over second-seeded TCU 52-47 in the MWC tournament championship. The Utes secured an automatic bid with the MWC tournament win.
Plouffe struggled most of the game, going 8-of-21, but she scored the Utes’ final eight points in overtime. She said she never lost confidence.
“I guess once I started missing a few shots, I started not shooting it,” she said. “My teammates told me and my coaches told me that I needed to shoot it. I did, and I just started making them when they mattered.”
What mattered most, though: The Utes’ first-half defense was impenetrable. Utah held TCU to just nine points in the first 7:24 of the game.
Utah flustered the MWC fifth-leading scorer Helena Sverrisdottir, holding her to only 10 points in the championship game.
Sverrisdottir scored 26 against UNM in the women’s semifinals.
Sverrisdottir said she didn’t think the Horned Frogs would start out so slowly.
“We obviously wanted to get a good start, and that didn’t happen,” she said. “They were really physical, and we should have known. We knew that they were physical team, but it kind of surprised us, and they were checking us on every cut.”
The Utes swept the Horned Frogs this season. TCU started the season 16-2, but finished 6-8 down the stretch, and as result, might kiss its NCAA tournament aspirations goodbye.
TCU and BYU will learn of their fates Monday when the women’s NCAA tournament field is selected.
Head coach Jeff Mittie said he is worried about his team’s inconsistency down the final stretch. He said the first few minutes of games were crucial.
“It’s been the Achilles’ heel for this basketball team,” he said. “They have dug themselves into some holes. Today we had to use much energy coming back. I was glad we got it to 10 at half, and I felt like we had it at a manageable number.”
Utah became the lowest seed to win the MWC tournament and the third lowest to play in the championship game. Playing in the tournament title game has become a Utes’ tradition. It’s their third consecutive title appearance.
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First-year head coach Anthony Levrets is making his case to stay after replacing legendary basketball coach Elaine Elliott, who took a leave of absence this season.
Levrets said that the year was a roller-coaster ride.
“A lot of adversity and a lot of ups and downs,” he said. “Me being new, having to change on the fly, it took us a little while to get there. But we’re a talented group, and we started playing well at the right time.”
