Posts tagged Big Ten
CU women stay cool through big Iowa comeback, win 90-87
Nov 21st
By: B.G. Brooks, Contributing Editor
BOULDER – The draw was clear, but it didn’t matter. Colorado students turned out by the hundreds for Wednesday night’s women’s basketball game matching No. 16 CU against previously unbeaten Iowa. Never mind that they came mostly for tickets to the men’s game on Dec. 7 against No. 2 Kansas.
All that mattered to CU coach Linda Lappe and her players was that the students showed up. Turns out, the Buffs needed them. They had a difficult time holding leads, but they held off the Hawkeyes nonetheless, winning 90-87 at the Coors Events Center.
At game’s end, students traded wrist bands given to them upon entering the CEC for the coveted KU tickets. The court was nearly stormed – not to celebrate a win – but in time the distribution of just under 2,000 tickets went smoothly. Another 500 will be made available to students.
“Whether they came for tickets or to watch us, it was their choice to come . . . I mean they were there, what more can you say?” said CU senior guard Brittany Wilson.
Wilson topped five Buffs in double figures. She started for the first time this season and scored a career-high 26 points – 17 in the first half. Arielle Roberson scored 17 points, contributed a game-best nine of CU’s 44 rebounds (Iowa had 35) and had a career-high six assists. Lexy Kresl scored 12, while Jasmine Sborov and Jen Reese added 10 points each for the Buffs.
Rounding back into form after a leg injury, Wilson hit seven of 10 free throws in the final 1:46 as the Buffs turned back their Big Ten visitors. For the foul-filled night (59 were called on both teams), CU hit 30-of-40 free throws to Iowa’s 21-of-32. The Hawkeyes lost three players to fouls, the Buffs two. But CU benefitted most at the line, getting 15 of its final 18 points at the free throw line in the last 4:54.
Lappe called the CU students “a huge help in a game like that . . . we enjoy having them and we hope they come back. Having students support you is important in women’s basketball. We knew the student section was going to be awesome.”
With the Twitter world abuzz Tuesday about the KU ticket distribution plan, Lappe had told her players to “keep a narrow focus” on Wednesday night.
The Buffs did, didn’t and finally did. A 20-point first-half lead was cut to two early in the second half. A 15-point second-half lead was cut to three in the final half minute. Yet the Buffs kept their cool, remained unbeaten (3-0) and eventually handed the Hawkeyes their first loss in five games.
“We knew they weren’t going to lay down and die,” Lappe said. “Their players play hard. But in the end I liked how we responded to every one of their runs. We could have folded; instead, we came down and hit shot, got key rebounds and got stops.”
The Buffs led by as many as 20 points (46-26) late in the first half, but a 9-2 run to close the half pulled the Hawkeyes to within 48-35 at intermission. The Buffs’ 48 first-half points were their most since the 2011 WNIT when they hit 50 against Cal, but they ended up allowing more than 70-plus points since the 2011-12 season.
CU forged its double-figure lead with a 17-0 surge that broke an 8-8 tie less than 5 minutes into the game. Wilson scored six points during the Buffs’ spurt but just as instrumental as her scoring in that run was CU’s defense. While the Buffs were going from that 8-8 tie to a 25-8 advantage, the Hawkeyes went without a field goal in six attempts. By the time Iowa found its range again, CU had opened its 20-point margin.
The Buffs shot 45.9 percent from the field in the first 20 minutes, hitting 17 of their 37 attempts, while the Hawkeyes went to the locker room at 40.7 percent (11-of-27). Iowa finished the game at 46.9 percent, thanks to 51.4 percent second half shootinig.
If the Buffs believed they could open the second half in cruise control, the Hawkeyes quickly put an end to the notion. Less than 2 minutes into the final 20, CU’s 20-point first-half lead was a distant memory.
The Hawkeyes one-upped their 9-2 run that closed the first half, outscoring the Buffs 10-2 to pull to within five points (50-45) on a Theairra Taylor three-pointer with just over 17 minutes remaining. Two minutes later, CU saw its lead cut to three (54-51) on a pair of free throws by Iowa freshman guard Ally Disterhoft.
One of two free by freshman Alexa Kastanek shrunk the Hawkeyes’ deficit to 56-54 – and the Buffs were in dire need of a boost. They got it with a 15-2 run.
Field goals by Sborov and Roberson, coupled with two Roberson free throws and another pair by Reese, pushed CU back up by 10 (64-54) with 10:01 left. Kresl added a layup, aided by a sweet look-off of an Iowa defender, then freshman Lauren Huggins drained a three-pointer from the left corner.
Suddenly, the Buffs were back up by 15 points (71-56) and appeared to be out of danger. The Hawkeyes had something else in mind – and rolling over wasn’t it. They used a 12-1 run to get within four points again (72-68) until Huggins’ huge trey from the right wing opened a 79-72 CU lead with 3:28 remaining.
Again, Iowa wasn’t done. Four consecutive free throws by Melissa Dixon brought Iowa to within 79-75 with 2:02 to play, and a layup by Clair Till pulled the Hawkeyes to 84-80 with 41.4 seconds showing. They got to 85-82, then 87-84, then 90-87 at the buzzer on a three-pointer by Samantha Logic, who tied Wilson with a game-high 26 points.
Lappe called the win “huge” for her team “to gain confidence and for our young players to get some minutes and see what that looks like.”
And as for the CU students, added Kresl, “Maybe it opened their eyes to us.”
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CU men draw Illini In NCAA First Round
Mar 18th
By B.G. Brooks, CUBuffs.com Contributing Editor
BOULDER – Back in mid-November, coach Tad Boyle and his young Colorado Buffaloes worked up a significant reservoir of the stuff along the drizzly, dank South Carolina coast, unexpectedly winning the Charleston Classic.
When the Baby Buffs returned with it to the Rockies, Boyle found them – to quote the poet – “always in want.” And Sunday afternoon in their coach’s den, their want was rewarded.
Colorado will play Illinois in the NCAA Tournament on Friday in Austin, Texas. The Buffs are a No. 10 seed, the Illini a No. 7. It is CU’s 12th overall NCAA appearance, the second consecutive trip to the Big Dance, and the first time for back-to-back appearances by the Buffs on March’s majestic college dance card in 50 years (1961-62/1962-63).
Before their successful stint in Charleston, Boyle conceded if this was an NCAA Tournament team he couldn’t see it coming.
“I wasn’t sure,” he said after Sunday’s early, anxious moments had passed. “I’ll be honest with you, when I looked at our schedule before the season started, after Europe, I was thinking 15 to 17 wins – somewhere in that neighborhood. Less than that and I think we would have underachieved, over that I think maybe we overachieved, just because of our youth and our schedule early.
“What happens is, you win early like we did in Charleston, we beat some good teams and you start getting greedy. You want a little bit more and a little bit more. Once that happened, I think my expectations, our fans’ expectations, everybody’s expectations go up.”
Boyle is very careful, very crafty not to hitch his expectations to those circulating outside the Coors Events Center. But this time, he might have found it difficult not to. He saw what his third CU team might be if it improved month to month, and by the final week of the regular season – that would be before an ugly home loss to Oregon State – he had seen indications that if it didn’t repeat as Pac-12 tournament champions, it could be among the NCAA’s 37 at-large entries.
And that’s as much a tribute to his upgrade of CU hoops as was winning four games in four days last March in L.A.
“This is a hard tournament to get into,” Boyle said. “We can’t ever take this for granted. This is the first back-to-back NCAA Tournaments (for CU) since the early ‘60s – a long, long time ago . . . so in the modern era, the first back-to-back. We don’t want it to be the last. I think it’s a great step forward for our program to get an at-large bid. Obviously we’d rather win the Pac-12 Tournament, but the fact we didn’t and we got in shows some respect (by the Selection Committee).”
That respect didn’t show itself for what seemed a painfully long time Sunday afternoon. The CBS Selection Show went through a pair of 15-minute segments in announcing the Midwest and South brackets before “Colorado” flashed on the screen opposite Illinois in the East.
During their half-hour wait, Boyle and his upperclassmen were flashing back to two years ago in the same room, when a festive Selection Sunday watch party turned funereal when the Buffs were spurned. Angst built on this Sunday when Pac-12 champ Oregon, which had defeated Oregon less than 24 hours earlier, was relegated to a No. 12 seed in the Midwest.
“I was sitting next to Andre (Roberson, junior forward) and we were both getting nervous,” Boyle recalled. “All the guys who were here two years ago . . . the rest of the guys don’t have any idea, but those guys do.”
The younger guys, however, were not sitting at ease. “I don’t know if I can even describe it,” sophomore guard Askia Booker said. “Your ears get hot, sweat starts coming down your head . . . you’re looking at teammates and they’re trying to keep themselves composed. It’s hard, nerve-wracking. But once you’re in, it’s all joy.”
Boyle’s nerves had everything to do with Selection Sunday 2011, but he added, “The fortunate thing was this was a new year, new team . . . a whole new deal. Logically – and I’m a pretty logical person – it shouldn’t have had anything to do with it. But emotionally, it’s human nature. You know how it works. We’re all scarred and sometimes you’re afraid of reopening those old wounds.”
They stayed closed and when the Buffs were in, with their opponent, date and destination, the Boyle den erupted in cheers.
“I’m happy for Andre getting to go back to Texas (he’s from San Antonio),” Boyle said. “Austin is a great place to go this time of year, heck, anytime of year for that matter. We’re very fortunate, and we’re playing a team from one of the toughest conferences in the country.”
Roberson, the nation’s leading rebounder who showed few effects at the Pac-12 tournament from a viral illness that sidelined him for the previous two games, called returning to his home state “definitely great. It’s a double for me. This is a great feeling, especially after what happened two years ago. We’re going to go and show everybody why we’re one of the best.”
One of Roberson’s personal goals this season is to advance to at least the Sweet Sixteen, and he believes “we can do that this year with the team we’ve got and the talent we have . . . I won’t say we overachieved, but we had a lot of young guys. We started to rebuild and I definitely feel we did a great job this year.”
Being seeded 10th was in the neighborhood where Boyle believed the Buffs might land – and he likes that spot.
“Quite frankly, I was hoping for a ten or eleven more than an eight or a nine,” he said. “You face usually a No. 1 seed (if you win the first game) and sometimes that No. 1 seed, they try and keep them close to home. They really put a lot of stock in those No. 1 seeds and once it starts going down from there, the part of the country is less important.
“So I thought certainly with a ten or eleven seed, your first-round opponent is maybe a little bit better, but your second-round opponent – now, they’re still going to be good, Miami is a No. 2 seed and won the ACC and the ACC Tournament – but you never know what’s going to happen in this thing. That’s what makes this tournament so special – the upsets. If a ten seed like Colorado beats a seven seed like Illinois, it’s not really considered an upset. But if a fifteen (seed) beats a two, it’s a major upset. Those eight-nine games are flips of the coin. We’re just elated to be a part of it.”
CU (21-11) and Illinois (22-12) have only played four games, with the Illini winning three. Their last meeting was in 1987 in Champaign, where the home team won 69-65. If the Buffs advance to the second round, they catch either Miami (Fla.) or Pacific; they’ve faced Miami once (a 73-66 CU win in Miami in 1957), but have never faced Pacific.
Illinois finished 8-10 in the Big Ten Conference and was ousted from the league tournament by Indiana 80-64. But the Illini defeated the Hoosiers 74-72 during the Big Ten regular season, as well as winning at Gonzaga 85-74 during non-conference play. Both Indiana and Gonzaga wound up as No. 1 NCAA seeds.
“They’re a very good team from one of the best leagues in the country if not the best,” Boyle said of Illinois. “They beat Gonzaga at Gonzaga and I don’t think anybody else did that this year. They’re a quality basketball team and we’ve got our work cut out for us. Whoever you play in this tournament, you’re going to play somebody good.”
Before Sunday’s Selection Show, Boyle asked his coordinator of operations, Bill Cartun, to start compiling tape on eight or nine possible NCAA opponents. Illinois was on Cartun’s list, so Boyle and his staff are a step ahead in that area. CU’s Illini scouting report will fall to assistant Mike Rohn.
The Buffs’ NCAA experience last March started and ended in Albuquerque, where they defeated UNLV before being sent home by Baylor. Boyle said the biggest lesson learned from that trip was to focus on one game, one opponent: “Not looking ahead is the biggest thing; there are no tomorrows.”
Playing in the moment is paramount, just as living in it on Sunday in Boyle’s den was excruciating.
“Everything you do as coach, and our players do, day in and day out in practice, all the jump shots, all the wind sprints, all the defensive drills – everything that we do kind of points to this day,” Boyle said. “It’s probably more important than it should be, but that’s the world we live in. You can’t bury your head in the sand. When it comes down to one day, one decision and it’s out of your hands, it’s nerve-wracking.”
When the Buffs were officially in, their coach reminded them, “It’s a heck of a lot easier when we win the Pac-12 tournament; there’s a lot less drama in this room.”
But that’s next season’s goal. A more immediate one awaits in Austin.
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