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Taryn Wicijowski has been honored three times as an all-conference basketball player. She graduated with a double major in biology and psychology, a minor in chemistry, and she's working toward another minor in nutrition as she strives to become a doctor.
Inactivity is not her thing.
But for three grueling months after tearing her ACL last season, one of Wicijowski's greatest ambitions was just to fully straighten her leg.
In theory, Wicijowski and Michelle Plouffe would have led the 2013-14 Utes into conference championship contention after flashing that potential during a 23-14 season in 2012-13. When Wicijowski and redshirt sophomore wing Paige Crozon (concussion) were sidelined, "Poof," said head coach Anthony Levrets: Those hopes disappeared.
It's harder to know what to expect from this year's Utes.
Levrets' squad returned to practice this week with Wicijowski, Crozon and a handful of new contributors, but missing Plouffe, who graduated, and sophomore center Emily Potter, who recently tore her ACL and is out the remainder of the year.
There's no sugar-coating the loss of Potter. She averaged 10.5 points, 6.7 rebounds and 1.4 blocks in making the Pac-12's All-Freshman Team, and was named MVP of the Jones Cup in Taiwan while leading the Canadian Women's Development Team.
Now she's in for a grind, Wicijowski said.
To spend your day struggling to repeat basic movements and your night watching your team play without you is "torturous," but Wicijowski can attest that, eventually, there is a silver lining.
In the pros column, Utah now has an uncommonly motivated star forward.
"We had 7:30 a.m. workouts all summer," she said. "No one wants to wake up that early. There are days, obviously, where you're like, 'I wish I could sleep in,' but at the same time, I would never, ever complain about it now. I'm so grateful to be able to do all the little things — whether it's just running up and down the court or actually playing in a game."
With 163 games played between them, senior Cheyenne Wilson and junior point guard Danielle Rodriguez also bring Pac-12 experience, and Wicijowski said Rodriguez has worked to gain confidence in her midrange shot so that teams can no longer double Utah's bigs.
Another plus: Leverts believes true freshmen Joeseta Fatuesi, Taneaya Boclair and junior transfer Katie Kuklok may immediately rank among his best players.
"The hard part last yewar was that we didn't have competition in practice because we just didn't have enough bodies," Levrets said. "It was whoever's healthy today is going to start. We now have a whole bunch of good players in that mix."
Because there are so many new faces and Utah's traditional motion offense is difficult to learn, Levrets is installing a simplified three-out, two-in offense that will allow underclassmen to "play without thinking."
The early returns have been positive, said sophomore wing Malia Nawahine, who started 12 games last year and is part of Utah's youth movement.
As much as anything, Nawahine said, she expects her team to improve because of last year's surprise struggles.
"There's kind of a different attitude in practices this year. We definitely have that bitter taste."
Twitter: @matthew_piper —
Newcomers
Utah coach Anthony Levrets said all five new Utes are as good as he thought they'd be. A little more about them:
Freshman Joeseta Fatuesi, 6-foot-4 center • The Santa Clara, Calif., product "can shoot the basketball, she can play inside, and passes the ball as well at her age as any post player that I've seen," Levrets said. Wicijowski said her defense is better than most freshmen, and she expects Fatuesi to contribute this year."She is so strong on offense, so it's really hard to stop her when she gets the ball in the post," she said. "She just has a ton of upside."
Freshman Taneaya Boclair, 6-foot forward • Boclair won three district titles at Brennan High and was a runner-up for Texas player of the year last season. Levrets said she's very intelligent and "gifted in a way athletically that we haven't had for the last couple of years."
Freshman Gabrielle Bowie, 5-foot-9 combo guard • Like Boclair, Bowie hails from San Antonio, was an honor student and is "also a very good athlete," Levrets said.
Freshman Jada Matthews, 6-foot-1 guard • Levrets isn't entirely sure where the Long Beach native will play, but "she's a good basketball player, great defender, great rebounder."
Junior transfer Katie Kuklok, 5-foot-10 shooting guard • Utah fans already have a taste of what Kuklok can do, ans she scored 34 points on 7-for-12 shooting in an 81-70 loss to Utah in the Huntsman Center last season. Kuklok shot 43.1 percent from three and 93.5 percent at the free-throw line as a sophomore for the Wolverines.