BYU women’s basketball only has two losses so far this season, and they’ve signed on two new players for next season.
Yesterday the Cougs swept the floor with the Wolverines during their crosstown clash, winning 77 to 51. After the game, Coach Jeff Judkins said BYU’s teamwork is improving and he’s excited to see how two new players will add to the team.
“I thought it was a great team effort,” Coach Judkins said, “That’s the strength of this team. We were bigger, stronger, and it eventually wore them down and we got some easy baskets.”
Freshman, Shaylee Gonzales, pounded seventeen points from those baskets, finishing the game with a season-high of twenty-three points. She also got five rebounds, dished out four assists and nailed two steals.
“Shaylee played a great game tonight,” Coach Judkins continued, “especially in the first half when we couldn't hit a shot and she was the only one that could make a basket.”
“I think we've been playing really well as a team,” Gonzales commented, “we're really young, and we have really good chemistry.”
Despite their chemistry, Gonzales said their loss to Southern Utah University last Tuesday took a toll on the team and pushed them to work even harder.
“And that loss was... it was really bad for us,” Gonzales admitted, “We should've won that game. We didn't come out as a team; we didn't play really good defense, and we had really bad turnovers. But like I said, that we have that goal for these next couple games because we play big teams that we just need to come out and work our hardest.”
Looking ahead, Coach Judkins announced earlier this month that Leilani Otuafi and Kyra Beckman signed national letters of intent to play for the Cougs next season.
“Kyra is 6' 3', and she's built very similar to Sig,” Coach Judkins explained, “she can really shoot and she's really strong. Lani got recruited very heavily and we were lucky to get here. Eventually I'm going to lose Brenna, I'm going to lose Shalae, and I'm going to lose Jasmine, so I’ve got to have somebody to take their places and those two will do a great job.”
Otuafi averages twelve points, five rebounds, 3.1 assists and 3.4 steals per game. Beckman averages 14.8 points, 8.7 rebounds, 1.4 assists and 2.1 steals per game.
Catch their next rivalry game against the University of Utah on Saturday, December 8 at 7 p.m. at the Huntsman Center in Salt Lake.