SALT LAKE CITY — Admirers peppered throughout the arena, all of whom came to see No. 35, pick a random end of the floor, congregate and wait. The cluster of fans swells and swells as more time passes. Soon this will be more than just a throng of giddy spectators — it will be a beaming, burgeoning crowd. Some spill out onto the floor, some stand patiently in the stands.
Eventually, Alissa Pili, one of the best basketball players in the country, emerges, having concluded her postgame media priorities. The fans erupt. Pili parts the crowd, finds a spot to post up and shakes hand after hand, smiling wide for photos and gripping tight to a marker to autograph anything handed her way.
This scene unfolded after a January road win at Arizona State and is routine inside the Huntsman Center at Utah. It’s also just as commonplace really anywhere the Utes have gone the past few months.
Less than a month later, after scoring a game-high 31 points in an early February win at Washington, Pili was still in her red Utah road jersey as a mass of fans waited. It grew so big that ushers tried their best to orchestrate the traffic on the floor inside Alaska Airlines Arena. Two days later after a game at Washington State, the same scene occurred.
“I was chatting with three or four people who…
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