Posts tagged STANFORD
Buffs Withstand Cardinal Rally, Hold On For 59-56 Win
Mar 6th
By Anthony Lepine, CU Student Assistant
STANFORD, Calif. – After back-to-back losses, the Colorado men’s basketball team got the win it desperately needed, holding on to defeat Stanford 59-56 Wednesday night in a game that likely will prove to be critical as March Madness looms.
Colorado (21-9, 10-7 Pac-12) withstood a Stanford comeback at Maples Pavilion and made free throws down the stretch to pick up its 21st regular season victory, matching the 1996-97 team for the best in school history.
“Getting a victory like this on the road is huge for our team,” CU coach Tad Boyle said on KOA Radio 850. “This team has an opportunity to set itself apart from any other team in the University of Colorado basketball history.”
Josh Scott scored 17 points and 11 rebounds to lead the Buffs
Securing the win, Boyle continued, “wasn’t easy. Our defense played good enough to keep us in the game until our offense got back going.”
Leading 46-38 after a jumper by Askia Booker with 14:15 to play, the Buffaloes watched the Cardinal (18-11, 9-8) come back to tie the game at 46-46. CU didn’t score again until Xavier Johnson’s jump shot with 5:59 remaining produced a 48-46 lead.
A 13-2 run briefly gave Stanford a late lead, but CU refused to wilt. Although still trailing the Cardinal 9-6 in the series, the Buffaloes lead 3-2 in Pac-12 play with three consecutive wins. It is the longest winning streak in the series dating to 1932.
“This was a big win for us,” said Johnson, one of two Buffs in double figures with 14 points. “For us to go nine minutes without scoring and still come out with the victory means that we’ve made great progress as a team.”
Josh Scott led CU with 17 points and 11 rebounds, posting his 12th double-double of the season and the 14th of his career.
Chasson Randle dominated for Stanford, scoring a game-high 24 points on 9-for-18 shooting from the field, while teammate Josh Huestis added nine points.
Colorado had a comfortable eight point lead in the second half until Randle single-handedly brought the Cardinal back. In its 13-2 run, Randle accounted for 10 points, including a 7-0 run of his own. Thanks in part to his heroics, Stanford managed to recapture its first lead since the 11:29 mark in the first half.
But the Buffs refused to crumble, answering with a 7-0 run capped by a Xavier Talton 3-pointer to take a 55-51 lead. However, Randle answered again with a conventional three-point play to bring Stanford within one (55-54) with 1:17 remaining.
With 45 seconds left, Colorado committed a shot-clock violation, giving Stanford possession. The Cardinal again looked to Randle for the lead but Askia Booker stripped him of the ball and then connected on 1-of-2 free throws after being fouled.
After a Stanford 3-point attempt rimmed out, Scott came away with the rebound, then gave the Buffs a four-point lead by hitting two free throws.
Talton was the last Buff to go to the free throw line, making one of two and putting CU up 59-56. Randle had one last chance to be Stanford’s hero, but his final trey attempt was off the mark.
CU, which led 33-28 at halftime, got some first-half production from Ben Mills and Eli Stalzer (seven points combined) to help the offense find its groove. The Buffs shot close to 50 percent from the field (11-of-24) while holding Stanford to merely 30 percent shooting (10-of-32) in the first 20 minutes.
Colorado benefited as forward Dwight Powell, Stanford’s second- leading scorer (14.6 ppg) and rebounder (7.5 rpg), limited himself by picking up three personal fouls in the first half and then committing his fourth personal with 11:54 remaining in the game.
Powell would foul out with 2 minutes remaining in the contest, finishing with just eight points and two rebounds in 28 minutes.
Under Boyle, Colorado is now 39-2 when out-rebounding and holding its opponent to under 40 percent from the field. The Buffaloes edged Stanford 39-31 on the boards and held the Cardinal to 36 percent (21-of-57) on its field goal attempts.
Colorado concludes the regular season and its Bay-Area road trip with a game at California on Saturday (4:30 p.m. MST, Pac-12 Network). The Pac-12 Tournament begins on March 12 in Las Vegas.
Roberson’s Career-High 24 Pushes Buffs Past Cardinal
Feb 28th
by B.G. Brooks, Contributing Editor
Release: 2/27/2013
STANFORD, Calif. – Andre Roberson woke up “sick and woozy” on Wednesday morning. By Wednesday night, he was much, much better – and Stanford was feeling ill.
Behind Roberson’s career-high 24 points and eight rebounds, Colorado edged the Cardinal 65-63, giving the Buffaloes their first Pac-12 Conference sweep of Stanford and their first-ever win at Maples Pavilion.
“Our players deserved that win,” said CU coach Tad Boyle, whose team improved to 19-8 overall and 9-6 in the conference.
“For what they’ve been through, how they battled and the heart they played with, they deserved that.”
Andre Roberson set a personal best for scoring in the game against Stanford
Roberson, a 6-7 junior, got scoring help from sophomore Spencer Dinwiddie with 19. They were the only two CU players in double figures.
In a postgame interview on KOA Radio, Roberson said after waking up feeling subpar on Wednesday morning, “I drank a lot of fluids, took some medicine. But Trae (Tashiro, trainer) had me on the right path and I had to come out here and take care of business. You have to fight through it.”
The win kept the Buffs in contention for the No. 4 seed in the Pac-12 tournament (March 13-16, Las Vegas). Said Roberson: “This means a lot for us . . . also in terms of the Pac-12 standings we’re trying to get that fourth seed. We’ll see how it goes.”
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Stanford (16-13, 7-9) had three players in double digits – Andy Brown with 17, Chasson Randle with 16 and Dwight Powell with 12. Powell almost ended with 14 points, taking an in-bounds pass with 2.4 seconds to play, turning on Roberson and going to the basket for a jam that would have sent the game into overtime.
But he had too much court to cover in too little time – and Roberson knew it. “I knew they were going to play the three or attack the rim,” Roberson said. “He went past me and I said, ‘Oh, shoot’ . . . but the ball was still in his hand when the light went off.”
After a collective CU sigh that might have rattled windows in the Rockies, the Buffs had their eighth win in 10 games and their third consecutive conference road win for the first time since the 2000-01 season.
Boyle called Roberson “a beast” for his offensive effort and lauded his overall defense on the 6-10 Powell. Boyle also said when Dinwiddie “plays aggressively and attacks the rim, and Andre plays like he did, those two are special.”
But overall, it was another special night for the Buffs. They won without 6-10 freshman center Josh Scott, who received an elbow to the head on Feb. 16 against Arizona State and did not play last week against Utah. Scott made the trip to the Bay Area but was held out of Wednesday night’s game. In CU’s 75-54 win against Stanford on Jan. 24, Scott scored 12 points and grabbed five rebounds.
Scott’s status for Saturday, when CU plays at fast-improving California (2 p.m. MST, ESPNU), is to be determined. Against Cal in Boulder on Jan. 27, Scott contributed five points and three rebounds. Nonetheless, the Buffs won 81-71, but since then the Bears have won seven of eight – including five straight.
Boyle said Scott “is getting closer every day . . . we wouldn’t have brought him if we didn’t think there wasn’t a chance of him playing.”
CU led only once (2-0) in Wednesday night’s first half and trailed 32-31 at intermission. Over the first 6:00, the Buffs shot horrendously, making only two of their first 13 shots and trailing by as many as 10 points (15-5).
But they refused to roll over, launching an 11-2 run that brought them to within 17-16 with 10:06 left before the break. They forged ties at 25-25 and 27-27 before the Cardinal answered with a 5-0 run to go up 32-27.
But CU closed the half with baskets by Dinwiddie and Jeremy Adams to account for their one-point deficit at intermission.
Dinwiddie’s 10 points topped the Buffs in the first 20 minutes, followed by Roberson with eight and Adams with seven off the bench, giving him 13 in the first halves of his last two games.
The difference in the first half for Stanford was its three-point shooting; the Cardinal hit five of their nine trey attempts while the Buffs were one of eight from beyond the arc. Stanford finished 9-of-20, CU 4-of-18.
The Buffs shot 42.9 percent from the field to the Cardinal’s 39.0 percent and outrebounded the home team 34-33. CU scored 36 points in the paint to Stanford’s 22.
The Buffs made only one of their first four shots over the first four-plus minutes of the second half, and the Cardinal outscored them 8-2 to go ahead 40-33 with 15:36 remaining. And when Randle drained a three-pointer from the right wing,
Stanford had matched its largest lead of the game – 10 points – at 43-33.
But as they did in the first half facing a 10-point deficit, the Buffs had a swift response. Dinwiddie scored five points to spark an 8-0 run, pulling CU to within two (43-41) with 11:50 to play. Less than two minutes later, a triple by Roberson with the shot clock at :02 brought the Buffs to within one (45-44).
And “Dre” was just getting started. He drained another trey, followed that with a layup, then watched Askia Booker hit a layup to send CU ahead 51-45 – the Buffs’ largest lead of the night.
After trailing by 10, CU had strung together an 18-5 run, but Stanford wasn’t finished. Another Randle three-ball, followed by a Brown tip, brought the Cardinal back to 51-50.
But the Buffs didn’t surrender the lead, going up by as many as six before a Josh Huestis tip brought the Cardinal to 61-59.
Dinwiddie answered with a layup (63-59) but he also got a technical foul for touching the ball after it came through the net.
Aaron Bright hit one of two free throws (63-60), but Roberson was fouled on a rebound and hit two free throws (65-60) with 15.1 seconds to play. Then a Brown triple from the left corner pulled Stanford to 65-63.
Dinwiddie was fouled with 4 seconds showing, but missed the front end of his one-and-one. Stanford controlled the rebound and called timeout with 2.4 seconds left. Powell got the inbounds pass, pivoted and went to the basket and jammed it . . . but it was too late.
“I saw the light go off (around the backboard),” a relieved Boyle said. “It was a break this team needs and deserves . . . Powell made a good play, there wasn’t just enough time for him, thank goodness.”
CU Women’s Comeback Falls Short Against No. 6 Cardinal
Jan 28th
Story by Caryn Maconi, CUBuffs.com
STANFORD, Calif. – The Colorado women’s basketball team encountered another in-game lapse on Sunday against Stanford, rallied from it, but couldn’t finish its comeback and fell 69-56 to the No. 6 Cardinal at Maples Pavilion.
The No. 20 Buffaloes held their own for most of the first half, staying within single digits of the Cardinal by halftime (35-26). That gap could’ve been smaller, however, had the Buffs not given up 10 first-half turnovers and allowed the Cardinal to go on a 9-3 run to cap the first half.
Colorado didn’t regain its momentum until midway through the second half, and with 14:25 remaining, Stanford had already built a 21-point lead from which CU could not recover. That slow second-half start, CU head coach Linda Lappe said, was reminiscent of another scoring drought the Buffs had the last time they played Stanford – a 57-40 loss on Jan 4.
“In both games that we’ve played these guys, we’ve had a stretch where we have not played very well, and we’ve just given them way too many opportunities,” Lappe said. “We weren’t making them work to get that 21-point lead, and that’s probably the most disappointing thing, in both games. Last time it was at the beginning of the game, this time it was right before half into the second half.”
Freshman Jamee Swan was high scorer in the game.
With the loss, the Buffaloes drop to 15-4 overall and 4-4 in Pac-12 Conference play, while Stanford improves to 18-2 and 7-1 in the Pac-12.
The two teams were ranked No. 1 and 2 in the conference in scoring defense entering the game, with the Buffs holding opponents to 52.7 points per game and the Cardinal 52.9. On Sunday, though, Stanford’s defense prevailed, forcing 18 Colorado turnovers.
Despite its ineffective opening to the second half, CU had nearly 15 minutes to play and wasn’t about to give up. The Buffs brought themselves back into contention with a 12-0 run, trimming the score to 51-42 with 10:45 remaining. The Cardinal’s lead eventually shrunk to just seven (53-46) as Brittany Wilson hit a three with eight minutes on the clock.
But every time Colorado brought the energy, Stanford responded. With 6:10 remaining, Stanford made what turned out to be a five-point play: forward Joslyn Tinkle hit a three-pointer, and missed her “and-1” shot, which forward Chiney Ogwumike rebounded for a layup.
It was the spark the Cardinal needed to bring the game home.
“We didn’t close out with our high hands, we run into the shooter and then we don’t box out on the free throw, and that was a huge deal at that point in the game,” Lappe said. “It gave them a lot of momentum.”
Though the Buffs kept fighting, they would never get closer than 10 points.
Lappe said that while Stanford brought a high level of play to the game, many of the Buffs’ mistakes were of their own creation.
“We didn’t do nearly enough that it was going to take to win tonight,” Lappe said, “and I felt like we controlled a lot of that.”
But junior guard Ashley Wilson, who scored five of her seven points during CU’s second-half comeback attempt, said her team had to feel that a win was still possible until the final buzzer.
“It’s just never giving up. No matter what position we’re in, we have to fight, fight ’till when the horn goes off,” Wilson said. “We’ve just got to be ready to bounce back. That’s all we can do every single time is bounce back and not let it defeat us.”
Sophomore forward Jamee Swan led Colorado in scoring with 14 points off the bench, while senior guard Chucky Jeffery added 13. Jeffery and redshirt freshman forward Arielle Roberson grabbed a team-high seven boards each, helping CU to out-rebound the Cardinal 39-33.
Stanford’s Ogwumike led all scorers with 20, adding 12 rebounds to earn her 15th double-double of the season. Three other Stanford players – Tinkle, guard Toni Kokenis and guard Amber Orrange – also scored in double figures, as the Cardinal hit 49.1 percent from the field compared to CU’s 36.1 percent.
Colorado has now played both of the Pac-12’s top-10 teams, Cal and Stanford, twice each, with those four games being the Buffs’ only conference losses.
Ashley Wilson said there were definite benefits to taking on such tough competition early in the season.
“We know we can play with the top teams in the country, we’ve proven that multiple times,” Wilson said. “So now we just have to take this confidence, take the positives out of this game and just let it keep rolling into the next few games.”
CU plays the third of four straight away games on Friday night against UCLA. The matchup is set for 9 p.m. MST and will air on the Pac-12 Network.
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