Utah State women's basketball team hopes to grow from first road game experiences

By Ashley Springer


The young Utah State University women's basketball team isn't quite used to the traveling that comes with road games.

The USU Aggies’ two road games thus far in the season have consisted of an 81-69 loss to Brigham Young University on Nov. 24 and a 74-60 loss to the University of Northern Colorado on Tuesday. 

According to USU freshman center Deja Mason, the biggest challenge that came with the road games was the traveling led to a lack of energy on the floor.

“In the game, we just kind of felt not as intense as we could have been at home,” Mason said. “We just had to work on the intensity that we didn’t really have.”

Although the Aggies faced BYU first, USU head coach Jerry Finkbeiner considered the Northern Colorado game to be the young team’s first real road game as it was the first game the team had flown to and stayed overnight.

USU’s 15-woman roster is two-thirds underclassmen with seven freshmen and three sophomores.

“It’s all about… experience,” Finkbeiner said. "Half our team — that was their first real road trip."

“We can’t use that as an excuse," said USU sophomore guard Funda Nakkasoglu. “We've got so many freshmen, but our coaches have recruited them because they feel that a lot of them can step up and play older than they are.”

Finkbeiner said some of the struggles the team faces on the road can't be practiced, such as packing luggage, traveling, the meals, the itinerary as well as the aspects that cannot be controlled like a late plane or a late bus.

"All of those things are just new and I think veteran teams have a big advantage... on the road because you can't duplicate, you can't practice it, you just have to experience it," Finkbeiner said.

“Of course everyone’s adjusting to the road games,” Nakkasoglu said. "We're going to get better as we go through the season in road games because people are going to have experienced it and they're going to know what it's like and they're going to be more comfortable playing in other gyms against other teams away from our home court.” 

According to Mason, getting used to the traveling as well as bringing energy to the games will be important in the future.

The Aggies will have two road games next week against Idaho State University on Tuesday and Utah Valley University on Dec. 10, but Finkbeiner considers the next true road trip to be the Lady Griz Classic in Missoula, Montana on Dec. 19 and 20.

"I just have a strong assumption because of this experience against Northern Colorado, there will be fewer surprises and more known things to happen and hopefully that will transfer over to the floor being more consistent and more focused and ready to play," Finkbeiner said.

“We kind of learned from this last experience how to do better in future road games,” Mason said.

The Aggies are currently 2-3 on the season. Finkbeiner, Mason and Nakkasoglu said the goal is to win at least half of the road games as well as the majority of home games.

“Since we already lost these two, these next few games are really important,” Mason said. “Good teams are much better when you win half of your away games.”

"If we do that, then we'll be in good shape come February, March," Finkbeiner said.