SUU women focus on road wins

CEDAR CITY — When Southern Utah University women's basketball coach Joe Hillock saw that his team was picked to finish fifth in the Mid Continent Conference he was overjoyed.

Since joining the conference, the T-Birds have always finished higher than originally projected.

"That's something we hang our hat on," Hillock said. "Hopefully this year it will be the same."

SUU, however, will have to take care of business on the road. The T-Birds (18-10, 9-7) lost six of their last seven regular season conference games on the road.

Had the T-Bird won half of those games, they would have finished higher than sixth in the conference and gotten a better draw in the Mid-Con tournament.

"You have to prove yourself every night on the road," Hillock said.

The T-Birds, with their run-and-gun offensive style, led the conference in scoring (68.7), but finished sixth in scoring defense (65.5) and dead last in rebounding.

Hillock lost four starters from last year, but returns Sara Hutton (10.1 ppg, 5.7 rpg), who was a preseason second-team selection, Monique Pili and Kristen Pierce, who both missed the entire year last year with injuries, and Janis Beal (8.6 ppg, shot 39.4 percent from the 3-point line). Hillock expects those four to be the foundation of the team.

Junior college transfers Cassie Warburton (Eastern Utah) and Cheryl Grant (Eastern Utah) are great additions.

"They have fit right in and it's like they have been here 3 or 4 years," Hillock said. "They pick stuff up so fast."

In all, the T-Birds have five seniors (Hutton, Beal, Julie Williams, Jessica Robison and Julia Allender), four juniors (Warburton, Pili, Pierce and Grant) and five true freshmen (Amy Young, Angie Higbee, Ally Smith, Katy Baker and Stacie Little).

"We've got enough coming back who have been in our program that it's not new for them," Hillock said. "I imagine if we played today the starters would be returning players of some sort."

With what Hillock calls potentially the best shooting team he's had at SUU, the T-Birds will run the floor after makes and misses and take advantage of their first open look.

"My whole philosophy has been, since the shot clock, is if you're open with 25 seconds left on the clock that's just as good as being open with five second left, and it may be a better look," he said.

Defensively, the T-Birds will play man-to-man and throw in a press of some sort on occasion to keep their opponents off balance.

After a pair of home exhibition games, the T-Birds open the year at BYU, a team the T-Birds beat 72-70 last year in Provo, on Nov. 19.

They open their home slate Nov. 22 with the first of three games with Western State, Utah State and Texas-Arlington.

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E-mail: jhinton@desnews.com