Utah coach Elaine Elliott on turning down the WNIT: "I told them it isn't for me. I don't care about it. The program doesn't need it. I don't need it. It's only about them, and they chose not to do that."

Utah wonders what more could it do...

The Utes can't control how good the other Mountain West teams are or how tough the other teams' schedules are. But they can control their own nonconference schedule.

This year, they did schedule a few tough games: UCSB, Montana, and Oklahoma. They lost all three. A win in even one of those three would have gotten them in.

Utah also played a bunch of marginal nonconference teams: SE Missouri, Fresno State, St. Mary's, Wash State, N Arizona, and USF.

Utah has a reasonable case that it should have been taken over Maryland or West Virginia. (Maryland, with a 12 seed, was the last at-large team in.) But there is more Utah could have done to help its own case.