A new era, a thrilling finish: How Utah won Gavin Petersen’s unforgettable head coaching debut

Gavin Petersen and the Utah women’s basketball team won’t soon forget the debut of their new head coach — not after a finish like Ute fans saw Friday night at the Huntsman Center.
In Petersen’s first game since taking over the head-coaching mantle from Lynne Roberts, Utah weathered a comeback from previously unbeaten Saint Joseph’s before winning on Maye Toure’s jumper with 4.6 seconds left to play in overtime.
That wasn’t the end of the suspense — the Hawks’ Talya Brugler had an open lane to the basket on the ensuing Saint Joseph’s possession, but she missed the layup, and Utah survived, winning 72-71.
“Wow. What a game. Our players have been through a lot over the last few days, and just to see their looks and in their eyes and the actions that they showed over the last two days. I didn’t know how today was going to play out, but I just knew they were not going to relent. They were not going to give in,” an emotionally spent Petersen said in the postgame press conference.
“We just beat one hell of a basketball team, and St Joe’s is going to be an NCAA tournament team. They’re probably going to be battling to win their conference, and we just gutted it out. We really did, and I am so proud of everybody in that locker room.”
Utah led for nearly the entire game — Saint Joseph’s had a lead for only 36 seconds all night — but it looked for a moment like the Hawks might pull this one out.
After Gianna Kneepkens was called for her fifth foul with 24 seconds left in overtime, the Hawks’ Rhian Stokes made two free throws to give Saint Joseph’s a 71-70 lead.
Despite leading by as many as three points in the overtime session, Utah needed a bucket to take the lead back — or a point to force a second overtime.
With Kneepkens unavailable — and Jenna Johnson, too, after she took a hard hit a minute earlier and left the floor limping — the Utes started their final possession.
Ines Vieira took a 3-pointer with 16 seconds left, but that shot missed long. Sophomore Reese Ross, who’s proven herself time and again in the early season, collected a key offensive rebound, and Utah called timeout with 10.9 seconds left to reset.
On the inbound, the ball ended up in Kennady McQueen’s hands, and she initially dribbled back to the 3-point line to try to get some separation from the defense.
She then threw in the post to the 6-foot-3 Toure, who turned, took one dribble and fired.
Toure’s shot hit the front of the rim, then bounced over and into the net, giving the Utes the lead back with 4.6 seconds to play.
“I was just I was looking for Kennady, because I think the play was for her initially, and she was supposed to get a 3, but she couldn’t,” Toure said of the game-winning play.
“So I was trying to give her a solution, and then I tried to take my time and just focus on making it, because I wanted to make it for the team so bad.”
Following a timeout, Saint Joseph’s passed the ball in to Brugler, and a missed defensive assignment gave her an open lane to the hoop.
The shot, though, bounced off the backboard and didn’t hit the rim — neither team could corral the ball before time expired, and Utah celebrated the wild victory.
“For (Brugler) to miss that like my heart goes out to her, because we had a missed assignment, which, when you don’t have much time to prepare, you have to kind of pick and choose what you can work on,” Petersen said.
The emotions — especially on this night of firsts — were running high. The new head coach fell to his knees, drained after the victory.
“I just felt confident in our players that like, I got to just let them play. I can’t over coach this game, but part of that is we didn’t go over any game situations. We didn’t go over ‘OK, when we’re up, they need 3.’ We haven’t done that. We haven’t had time to do that, so that’s probably why I fell to my knees, just like, ‘Holy crap. We just won that game,’” Petersen said.
“And it just was, yeah, just kind of a big exhale, but just again, super proud of these guys. I told them I can live with any result that happens as long as they empty their tank and they collectively play together, and I’m pretty sure, when I watch the film back, they did that.”
For both teams, scoring rarely came easy Friday night, as the matchup turned more into a grind-it-out contest.
Even though the Utes led by as many as 14 points in the first half, the Eagles kept fighting back into the game.
Saint Joseph’s used an 11-2 run in the second quarter to cut down that once 14-point lead, then in the third quarter, Utah missed its first nine shots, and the Hawks nearly grabbed the lead.
Utah, though, stayed in front all the way until overtime, though it wasn’t easy.
Saint Joseph’s made it a two-point game just over a minute into the fourth quarter, and while Utah responded with an 8-0 run, the Hawks fought back.
Eventually, McQueen hit two big shots — one a 3-pointer to give the Utes a 61-55 lead with 2:18 to play, then a layup that pushed the lead to 63-60 with 54 seconds left on the clock.
As Saint Joseph’s had done time and again, the Hawks had a response. This time, Laura Ziegler, who scored 20 points, drilled a 3-pointer with 31 seconds remaining in regulation to tie the game for the first time since it was 0-0.
Utah had a chance to win it in regulation, but Kneepkens’ 3-point attempt didn’t fall and the game headed to overtime.
Petersen saw the resolve in his team to shake off the adversity it faced, and in the process, Utah endured for a memorable victory — even when it took overtime.
“A good team like that, you’re not going to put them away in the first quarter. We challenged our players to break the four quarters into eight little segments, and we were keeping track of that, and we lost, I think, two segments by one point,” Petersen said. “And we were like, ‘Hey guys, we’ve got (to) just lock in,’ and a credit to them. They battled, but I am very proud, and I think that’s what we did.”
In particular, Petersen pointed to how his players responded despite losing the lead in overtime — the Utes also trailed by two early in the extra session — as a mark of a winning, resilient team.
“We did face some adversity at the end. We lost the lead … so that sometimes can set a team back. You’ve been winning all game, all game, and then, boom, you get punched in the mouth with a little bit of time left in the fourth quarter, and they didn’t blink,” he said.
“They looked at it and said, ‘All right, we got the right, we got this.’ There’s something in their look that I was just very confident in. Whatever we wanted to call they would execute, and they did.”
Utah was outshot 38.8% to 43.5% by Saint Joseph’s, but both the new head coach and his players talked routinely in the postgame press conference about the resolve of the team following what’s been not just an emotional night, but an emotional week.
Roberts, who had been Utah’s head coach since 2015, had left in-season for an opportunity at the professional level. While Petersen, who has been an assistant coach under Roberts for the past 12 years — and the last five as an associate head coach — was a natural fit to take over for Roberts, that still doesn’t eliminate the emotional strain felt inside the Utah program this week.
There was heartbreak and excitement for Roberts being able to take her competitiveness to the WNBA level, and even excitement for Petersen to step right in as a natural leader for a Utah program that’s gunning to make the NCAA Tournament for a fourth straight season.
McQueen, who’s been in the program for five years, shared her excitement — and resolve — in rallying around the team’s new coach.
“Our culture is intact, so that as players, that’s what made us not nervous. I’ve been around Gav for five years,” she said. “I knew from the moment I stepped on campus, I was like, ‘Wow, Gavin Petersen would make a fantastic head coach one day,’ and who would know that I get to go out my final year with him. So best of luck to Coach Rob, but the message doesn’t stop.
“Emotions have been a roller coaster, but we’ll figure it out. Put our head down, keep working. That’s the plan.”
For Petersen, there was relief that the first game played out the way it did.
“It was more of a relief, because I didn’t want to let these guys down, I really didn’t,” he said. “They’ve been phenomenal over the last few days, and it’s just man, I’m so proud that they got to pull it out. You know, they faced adversity, looked it in its face, and said, ‘Let’s go.’ We can roll with that, and we’re going to be fine with that type of mentality. We’ll fix mistakes.
“… Man, they deserve this.”
Just over a week ago, Utah was coming off a heartbreaking loss at Northwestern, losing 71-69 on a late jumper.
On Monday, in the press conference following Utah’s 68-point win over McNeese, both Roberts and players jokingly referred to that as “the game that shall not be named.”
Eight days after that loss to the Wildcats, there’s a new — and much more positive — lesson learned from a tight game that helped build resolve.
McQueen, who struggled in the loss to Northwestern — she and Maty Wilke combined to go 0 of 14 from 3-point range in that game — ended up making big play after big play Friday.
She finished the night with a team-high tying 14 points and made a pair of 3-pointers. She also had four assists and two steals.
Kneepkens put up 14 points, and while she shot just 4 of 12 from the field, the junior guard also contributed with four rebounds, three assists and a block.
Toure, the hero of the night, nearly had a double-double with 12 points and nine rebounds. She also had three blocks — including a cheer-inducing one on a 3-point attempt — to go with a steal and an assist.
Utah had seven players score seven points or more on a night when players across the roster came up with big plays in big moments.
Playing in close games is nothing new for McQueen, Kneepkens, Johnson or Vieira — four veterans who have played multiple years together — as well as newcomers like Toure and a trio of freshmen.
For McQueen, there was a lesson learned in how Utah defended that helped bring them the win this time.
“At Northwestern, we had an off offensive night, but we had to learn the message that even when things aren’t going our way offensively, we have to really hone in on defense,” McQueen said. “And I feel like that’s really what changed in this game. It felt like on the court was just, our help was a lot better. Everything just kind of seemed together.
“We had some some mismatches that we didn’t want, but overall, the intensity was there, and that’s something we were lacking with that loss we suffered. So it was just, we just learned from the loss and built on that.”