Ron Baird, news editor
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WBB: Buffs avoid a meltdown, still come up short
Feb 17th
http://www.cubuffs.com/mediaPortal/player.dbml?id=3200918
By: B.G. Brooks, Contributing Editor
BOULDER – Another chance at a close-game breakthrough eluded the Colorado women’s basketball team Sunday afternoon. Following what has become a painfully familiar script, CU faltered in the final 5 minutes and lost 80-77 to Washington State at the Coors Events Center.
“Well, it seems a little bit like déjà vu,” said Buffaloes coach Linda Lappe, whose team lost its fourth Pac-12 Conference game this season by three or fewer points.
Lappe credited the Buffs for competing throughout and staying close enough to win but again lamented their inability to “make key stops, free throws, passes and shots down the stretch that would have helped us have the outcome we wanted.”
After trailing by as many as nine points midway through the second half, CU (14-11, 4-10) rallied to tie the score at 71-71. But the Buffs clanked four of their next five free throws, not hitting one until Ashley Wilson converted a pair with 2:52 to play, then sank one of two to put CU up 75-73 with 2:17 remaining.
From there until the final buzzer, the Buffs got only a field goal by Jen Reese in the last 2 seconds that made it a two-point (79-77) game. After one of two foul shots by WSU’s Shalie Dheensaw with 1.1 seconds left put WSU (14-12, 8-6) up 80-77, Reese threw a three-quarter court length pass to Jamie Swan, who caught the ball then passed to Wilson instead of shooting.
Time expired before Wilson could attempt a shot.
Lappe said Reese’s long pass went a step or two too deep, forcing Swan inside the 3-point circle to catch it – thus Swan’s decision to kick it back to Wilson. Reese said the play was designed for Swan to catch-and-shoot, but added, “If there was more time, Ashley could have shot the ball. The pass was there; she had it.”
Swan, again coming off the bench, and Reese led the Buffs with 19 points each, while Ashley Wilson added 12. Arielle Roberson was a point away from a double-double in points and rebounds – nine in each category. Brittany Wilson left the game with 12:19 to play and did not return after suffering a possible concussion.
The Buffs had problems with Washington’s backcourt of Kelsey Plum (25 points) and Jazmine Davis (24) in an 87-80 loss on Thursday night. This was part of Lappe’s déjà vu: On Sunday, CU surrendered 42 combined points to WSU guards Tia Presley (32) and Lia Galdeira (10).
Presley got 22 of her total in the first half, then picked up eight more points in the first 4:55 of the second half. She didn’t get her 32nd point until hitting a layup with 1:27 to play, putting the Cougars up 77-75.
That nearly 14-minute span of keeping Presley in check, said Ashley Wilson, came from “focusing on keeping the ball out of her hands” in the second half. “We had a couple of different players on her (and) when she was driving, just have our bigger post players waiting for her at the basket. It turned out to work in our favor.”
Lappe also thought a different lineup might work in the Buffs’ favor; she used a bigger five of Swan, Reese, Roberson and Rachel Hargis, with Ashley Wilson at guard, in the first half and again to close the game.
But it didn’t matter in CU making enough late plays to win. “There’s no magic formula,” Lappe said. “You just have to do it. You have to figure out that enough’s enough and decide to be tough enough to do that. You have to understand that every team is going to get tougher down the stretch and that’s when the stars are really born. It’s where players step up.”
The Cougars swept the series with the Buffs, winning 70-60 last month in Corvallis, Wash. With their loss to the Huskies on Thursday, the Buffs gave up 80 points or more for the second consecutive game and the fourth time in Pac-12 play. And it marks the first time CU has allowed 80 or more points in back-to-back games since the 2008 WNIT.
The Buffs trailed 44-40 at halftime, surrendering a 25-22 lead taken on a 3-pointer by Roberson with 8:37 left before the break. But CU didn’t get another field goal for nearly 4 minutes, and during that time WSU was building its largest lead of the half – 34-25 – with Presley scoring eight of her 22 first-half points in that stretch.
“She played too many minutes tonight (36), but you really can’t take her out,” said WSU coach June Daugherty. “She’s such a fierce competitor.”
A defensive upgrade had to be among CU’s second-half goals, but that message – if delivered – apparently took a while to register. The Cougars outscored the Buffs 7-2 to open the half, with Presley scoring consecutive baskets to kick off that run. WSU again stretched its lead to nine – 51-42 – on a traditional three-point play by Shane Romberg (14 points, 12 rebounds).
By the 10-minute mark the Buffs still trailed by seven – 64-57 – but they were about to make their move. With Reese getting four points in a 6-0 run and freshman Zoe Beard-Fails scoring on a put-back, CU pulled within 64-63 with 9:07 remaining.
The Buffs finally tied the Cougars at 71-71 when Swan hit both ends of a one-and-one with 4:23 left. On the previous possession, With 5:51 to play, Swan scored what would be CU’s next-to-last field goal – the last being Reese’s jumper with 2 seconds left.
After Ashley Wilson hit one of two free throws to give CU its 75-73 lead with 2:17 left, WSU got four free throws from Galdeira, Presley’s layup and one of two foul shots from Dheensaw to account for its 80 points.
The Cougars were up 80-77 and the Buffs needed a nearly full-court pass and full-blown miracle to force overtime. They got the first but not the second.
“We have to forget about this game, but we have to learn from it as well and move on,” Reese said. “We just have to finish down the stretch . . . hopefully good things will come.”
CU is at Arizona State on Friday night (6:30 p.m.) and at Arizona next Sunday (3 p.m.). The Buffs close out the regular season at home against UCLA on Feb. 28 and USC on March 2.
Buffs take USC, split in So Cal games
Feb 17th
LOS ANGELES – After playing a forgettable second half in a loss at UCLA on Thursday, Colorado responded with 40 solid minutes of basketball and an 83-74 victory over Southern California on Sunday night at the Galen Center. The Buffaloes (19-7, 8-5 Pac-12) finished with five players scoring in double-figures, led by Xavier Johnson with 20 points and Josh Scott with 17. CU is now 5-0 on the season when five players score 10 or more points in a game. USC (10-15, 1-11) was able to rally late and got as close as eight with 28.5 seconds remaining, but it would not be enough. The Buffs smothered the Trojans with defense, forcing 17 turnovers. USC was led by Byron Wesley, who finished with 21 points and 8 rebounds. Johnson got the Buffs going offensively with five of his team’s first seven points. But two quick fouls put him on the bench.
Freshman Jaron Hopkins provided a spark from the bench with career-high 10 first-half points, including a three-pointer and a layup in transition that gave the Buffs a 10-point lead on two separate occasions. CU led by as many as 11 in the first half after Xavier Talton capped a 9-2 run with a trey, making the score 36-25 with 3:28 remaining in the half. The half ended with USC’s 12th turnover and CU on top 40-32; it was the third straight game in which the Buffs had scored 40 in a half, with 13 of those points coming off Trojan turnovers. CU picked up its fourth win in four games against USC in Pac-12 play. The Buffs are also perfect against Washington State (4-0) since joining the league in 2011. Colorado returns home for its final two home games against Arizona State on Wednesday (9 p.m. MT, ESPNU) and then No. 2 Arizona on Saturday, February 22 (7 p.m. MT, ESPN) when College GameDay will be in town for CU’s Senior Day.
CU: Stem cells boost aging muscles
Feb 16th
to new methods of mitigating muscle loss
New findings on why skeletal muscle stem cells stop dividing and renewing muscle mass during aging points up a unique therapeutic opportunity for managing muscle-wasting conditions in humans, says a new University of Colorado Boulder study.
According to CU-Boulder Professor Bradley Olwin, the loss of skeletal muscle mass and function as we age can lead to sarcopenia, a debilitating muscle-wasting condition that generally hits the elderly hardest. The new study indicates that altering two particular cell-signaling pathways independently in aged mice enhances muscle stem cell renewal and improves muscle regeneration.
One cell-signaling pathway the team identified, known as p38 MAPK, appears to be a major player in making or breaking the skeletal muscle stem cell, or satellite cell, renewal process in adult mice, said Olwin of the molecular, cellular and developmental biology department. Hyperactivation of the p38 MAPK cell-signaling pathway inhibits the renewal of muscle stem cells in aged mice, perhaps because of cellular stress and inflammatory responses acquired during the aging process.
The researchers knew that obliterating the p38 MAPK pathway in the stem cells of adult mice would block the renewal of satellite cells, said Olwin. But when the team only partially shut down the activity in the cell-signaling pathway by using a specific chemical inhibitor, the adult satellite cells showed significant renewal, he said. “We showed that the level of signaling from this cellular pathway is very important to the renewal of the satellite cells in adult mice, which was a very big surprise,” said Olwin.
A paper on the subject appeared online Feb. 16 in the journal Nature Medicine.
One reason the CU-Boulder study is important is that the results could lead to the use of low-dose inhibitors, perhaps anti-inflammatory compounds, to calm the activity in the p38 MAPK cell-signaling pathway in human muscle stem cells, said Olwin.
The CU-Boulder research team also identified a second cell-signaling pathway affecting skeletal muscle renewal – a receptor known as the fibroblast growth factor receptor-1, or FGFR-1. The researchers showed when the FGFR-1 receptor protein was turned on in specially bred lab mice, the renewal of satellite cells increased significantly. “We still don’t understand how that particular mechanism works,” he said.
Another major finding of the study was that while satellite cells transplanted from young mice to other young mice showed significant renewal for up to two years, those transplanted from old mice to young mice failed. “We found definitively that satellite cells from an aged mouse are not able to maintain the ability to replenish themselves,” Olwin said. “This is likely one of the contributors to loss of muscle mass during the aging process of humans.”
Co-authors included first author and CU-Boulder postdoctoral researcher Jennifer Bernet, former CU-Boulder graduate student John K. Hall, CU-Boulder undergraduate Thomas Carter, and CU-Boulder postdoctoral researchers Jason Doles and Kathleen Kelly-Tanaka. The National Institutes of Health and the Ellison Medical Foundation funded the study.
Olwin said skeletal muscle function and mass decline with age in humans beginning at roughly age 40. While there are a variety of muscle-wasting diseases — ranging from muscular dystrophy to Lou Gehrig’s disease — the condition known as sarcopenia can lead to severe muscle loss, frailty and eventual death and is leading to skyrocketing health care costs for the elderly. “If you live long enough, you’ll get it,” he said.
Olwin and his team worked closely on the research with a team from Stanford University led by Professor Helen Blau, which published a companion paper in the same issue of Nature Medicine. “We shared data with the Stanford team during the entire process and we all were very pleased with the study outcomes,” said Olwin. “This is how science should work.”