MWC basketball: U. women big MWC favorites

LAS VEGAS — For the Utah women's basketball team, being picked to win the Mountain West Conference is nothing new.

The Utes have won or shared six titles in the 10-year history of the league, including last year, when they went through the league with a perfect 16-0 record.

In Tuesday's annual preseason poll, Utah received 16 first-place votes and 206 total points, well ahead of San Diego State with six first-place votes and 184 points. TCU was picked for third, New Mexico for fourth and BYU for fifth.

Ute coach Elaine Elliott just shrugged when asked about being pegged the favorite again, despite losing MWC player of the year Leilani Mitchell and forward Jessica Perry.

She said the Utes should be favored, based on how "teams do the year before and who lost who. That's all preseason predictions are."

The fact that Utah has two top returning players in Morgan Warburton and Kalee Whipple makes them the favorite. Except for San Diego State, most MWC teams lost most of their top players from last year.

Warburton, a 5-foot-11 guard from Helper, averaged 17.2 points last year and was picked as the preseason player of the year.

"I can't really look at that too much," Warburton said. "I just need to play my game and help my team out in any way that I can. It'd be nice at the end of the year."

The biggest challenge for the Utes is replacing Mitchell at the point. Elliott said three players are vying for the job right now — junior Hennasea Takumura and freshmen Janita Badon and Hannah Stephens.

BYU coach Jeff Judkins is coming off his first losing season (13-16) after six straight winning seasons. He has another young team with just four upperclassmen, but he's excited about his new players. He said three freshmen — center Kristen Riley, forward Alexis Kaufusi and guard Haley Hall — all have a chance to see a lot of minutes this year.

He calls Riley, the younger sister of Lauren Riley-Varley, who graduated last year, his top recruit since he's been at BYU.

"I'm excited and ready to go," he said. "We're going to really try and push the ball more than last year and hopefully get some early baskets."

San Diego State looks like the top challenger to Utah, with all five starters returning, including junior Paris Johnson and sophomore Jene Morris, both selected to the preseason all-MWC team.