CU Buffs
Jeffery’s 28 Pushes Buffs To Pac-12 Win
Jan 9th
BOULDER – Linda Lappe’s third Colorado women’s basketball team is more balanced than her first two, but after a pair of Pac-12 Conference losses she wisely recognized that a stronger dose of Chucky Jeffery might be just as beneficial as balance.
After dropping consecutive home games to No. 4 Stanford and No. 7 California, Lappe and Jeffery talked – and on Tuesday night Jeffery responded. The senior point guard scored a season-high 28 points and collected 12 rebounds to lead No. 23 CU to its first Pac-12 win of the season, 67-57 over Utah at the Coors Events Center.
“Chucky came out a lot more aggressive,” Lappe said. “She was tentative against Cal and Stanford . . . we needed more from her.”
More is what Jeffery delivered, helping key a 20-3 second-half run as the Buffaloes (12-2, 1-2) finally pulled away from the uncooperative Utes (9-5, 0-3).
CU also was lights out from the free throw line, hitting 22 of 26 in the second half and 23 of 28 for the game. The Buffs’ final nine points came from the foul line, and they sealed the win by sinking five of six free throws in the final 33 seconds.
Lappe said Jeffery, whose 10 field goals tied a season high, “got in a great flow offensively . . . she took her time, but she was being aggressive and everything was in rhythm. She didn’t force too much.”
Registering her 23rd career double-double (third this season), it was the type of trademark performance expected of Jeffery in her first three CU seasons. “And we still need that from her,” Lappe said. “She knew when we needed to score . . . she understood her role and sometimes that’s taking the bull by the horns. There are times when we need her to step up; she understands big possessions.”
It wasn’t as if Jeffery was completely unproductive against Stanford (17 points) and Cal (13). But she agreed with her coach about playing tentative to open Pac-12 play: “After the past two games, I watched film with coach . . . and I was tentative and wasn’t looking to score. She just wanted me to be more aggressive. She told me when I’m more aggressive I make smarter and better decisions to create and help my teammates score as well.”
CU won’t have to put in extensive film study for its next game with Utah. The Buffs play the Utes in Salt Lake City on Sunday (3 p.m.). Last season, CU and Utah split their regular-season series, with each team winning on the road and CU breaking the tie with a win in the Pac-12 tournament.
The Buffs only led once in Tuesday’s first half, and it took them 19 minutes to finally catch the Utes. They did it by closing the half on a 10-1 run, with eight of the points scored by Jeffery as CU took a 32-31 lead at intermission.
Behind Plouffe’s 11 first-half points, Utah led by eight points on two occasions before CU shook itself awake. The Utes’ last eight-point advantage (30-22) came on a pair of Wicijowski free throws with 4:42 remaining before the break.
That’s when Jeffery went to work, getting eight of her 14 first-half points in the final 41/2 minutes. The Buffs’ other basket was scored by freshman Jamee Swan, who finished with a career-high 11 boards and eight points in 22 minutes and was a catalyst in CU catching up in the first half, said Lappe: “She kept us in the game for a lot of the first half.”
The Buffs’ 32 first-half points gave them a nice start toward finally reaching 50 in their third conference home game. They managed only 40 and 49 in the two previous losses, marking the first time since the 1974-75 season CU had been held under 50 points in consecutive home games.
But that wasn’t a second-half focal point for the Buffs; scoring 49 and getting a one-point win would have been fine. They opened the second half with a basket by Swan, taking their largest lead (34-31) of the night to that point.
Plouffe answered for Utah (34-33), then got a trey by Rachel Messer to go up 36-34. Meagan Malcolm-Peck’s layup tied the score at 36-36 before a 9-2 Utes run opened a 45-38 advantage for the visitors with just under 13 minutes to play.
It was the Buffs’ turn to respond, and they did with an 11-1 run, with seven of the points made at the free throw line. The final pair by Brittany Wilson put CU up 49-46 with 8:49 left.
Jeffery took it from there. After hitting a short jumper, she got a steal at the other end, was fouled and hit two free throws for a 55-48 Buffs lead. And when the Utes misfired on their next possession, Jeffery made them pay with a three-pointer from the top of the key that completed CU’s 20-3 surge and opened a 10-point lead (58-48) with 5:58 remaining.
The Utes pulled to within five points (62-57) when Plouffe made one of three free throws with 36.1 seconds to play. But the Buffs pulled away at the free throw line, hitting five of six free throws to pocket their first Pac-12 win.
“I’m happy . . . it’s nice to get that first one,” Lappe said. “You have to give Utah credit, though; they don’t beat themselves. You really have to work hard to beat Utah.”
A chance for a sweep comes again in five days, which Lappe calls “different (because) we play them again so soon . . . I think there will be some changes by both teams, but for the most part we know each other’s game.”
The Utes know Jeffery’s game, said Utah coach Anthony Levrets: “We played a really good team and obviously Chucky made a ton of plays to beat us. But I’m pleased with my team’s effort and we’ll keep working and try to get ourselves ready to go on Sunday.”
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No. 20 CU women’s b-ball team starts slow, falls to No. 4 Cardinal
Jan 5th
BOULDER – The Stanford women’s basketball team suffered a humbling home loss last weekend and that’s where the Cardinal left that unpleasant experience – at home.
The Stanford team that showed up Friday night at the Coors Events Center was crisp, focused and physical – and too much for slow-starting Colorado.
The No. 20 Buffaloes played the No. 20 Cardinal even (26-26) in the second half, but, oh, that forgettable first half . . . In the Pac-12 Conference opener for both teams, Stanford opened strong and stayed in control, downing CU 57-40 and stopping the Buffs’ winning streak at 12.
CU (12-1, 0-1) doesn’t have time to dwell on its first loss; No. 7 California visits the CED on Sunday at noon. “It will show a lot about the character of our team – who we are, what we’re about,” Buffs coach Linda Lappe said. “We’re going to keep this game in perspective . . . it only hurts you if you let it. There were a lot of positives.”
Stanford (12-1, 1-0) ) has won or shared the league championship in every season this decade, has posted 79 consecutive conference wins (regular season/conference tournament) and has made Final Four appearances in each of the past five seasons.
And the Cardinal, bolting to a 15-point lead almost before the Buffs could blink, offered hints Friday night that success of that sort might be on the way again.
Junior forward Chiney Ogwumike led Stanford with a game-high 20 points and 11 rebounds. Senior guard Chucky Jeffery scored 17 for CU and redshirt freshman Arielle Roberson, who had been in double figures for all 12 games and entered Friday night as CU’s leading scorer (15.7), finally reached double digits (10) on a jump shot with 49.1 seconds to play.
CU was hoping to get a jump on the Cardinal and get the CEC crowd (5,888) involved – but it didn’t work out that way. Stanford, coming off its first loss of the season last weekend (61-35 at home to Connecticut), got a grip on CU and didn’t let go.
Senior Joslyn Tinkle opened the scoring with a three-pointer as the shot clock wound down, sophomore Amber Orrange followed with a layup, and the Cardinal was in high gear. CU, meanwhile, was struggling to find first.
It took the Buffs nearly 4 minutes to get on the scoreboard – Rachel Hargis got the first basket at 16:15 – then another 6:11 to score again. At the 11:37 mark, Stanford was up 15-2 and CU was 1-for-15 from the field (6.7 percent) and had suffered six blocked shots.
Hargis finally got someone to accompany her in the scoring column when Jeffery hit a jumper from just left of the free throw line with 10:04 left before intermission. She finished with eight first-half points but got little help; in addition to Hargis, Roberson and Jen Reese were the only other Buffs to score. Each had two first-half points, and Roberson’s basket didn’t come until 1:24 remained before intermission.
For most of the first half’s final 12 minutes, Stanford held a 15-point lead, then increased it to 17 (31-14) in the last minute. CU’s 14 first-half points were the fewest ever at home and tied for the third-fewest ever.
The Cardinal scored the second half’s first four points and increased its lead to 21 (35-14) before the Buffs got a conventional three-point play from Roberson to open their second-half scoring. But CU still had a mountain to climb and the time to do it was dwindling.
The Buffs pulled to within 15 (37-22) on a steal and layup by Jasmine Sborov with 14:10 remaining, but the Cardinal answered with two free throws by Ogwumike and a layup by Orrange for a 19-point (41-22) advantage.
The 15-point deficit on Sborov’s layup was the closest CU could come until Jeffery converted a traditional three-point play with 3:30 remaining to pull the Buffs within 12 (49-37). But they got no closer than that.
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Buffs Fall To Wildcats In OT After Controversial Call
Jan 4th
The Buffs believed they had won when senior Sabatino Chen banked in a three-pointer at the final buzzer in regulation of their Pac-12 Conference opener. But after conferring with the timekeepers and watching the replay monitor at McKale Arena, officials disallowed Chen’s shot and the game went into OT.
Shown a replay of Chen’s trey before his postgame interview with KOA Radio, CU coach Tad Boyle said, “That just makes me sick to my stomach . . . I’m sick to my stomach because I think our team deserved to win that game. But we didn’t and we have to move on from it.”
Boyle said he was proud of his team and that it “had that game won in a lot of ways.” He also promised the Buffs would move on, but they also would remember: “We’re not going to move on as, ‘Oh, were going to forget about it and move on.’ We’re going to remember this because you have to remember this feeling. If it doesn’t hurt in the pit of your stomach and you’re not a little bit pissed off then something is wrong with you.”
In the overtime, it was all Wildcats, who trailed by as many as 17 points in the first half and 16 in the second. Less than a minute into overtime, they took their first lead since 5-4 on a three-point play by Kevin Parrom to make it 83-82.
The Buffs tied it at 83-83 on one of two free throws by Xavier Johnson, who made his first career start in place of Chen. But CU didn’t score again. Arizona – beaten twice by CU last season, the final time for the Pac-12 tournament title – got nine more points and rolled to its first 13-0 start since 1931-32.
The Buffs (10-3, 0-1) play at Arizona State on Sunday at 6 p.m.
Five CU players scored in double figures, topped by Askia Booker’s 18. Freshman Josh Scott and Chen scored 15 each – a career-high for Chen – while Johnson had 13 and Spencer Dinwiddie 11.
Arizona’s Mark Lyons, who sent the game into overtime with a pair of free throws with 9.2 seconds left in regulation, led all scorers with 24 points. He made all 10 of his free throw attempts, while CU hit 17-of-29. In the final 1:44 of regulation, holding a seven-point lead, the Buffs made only three of eight free throw attempts.
“You have to look at the free throws,” Boyle said. “We shot 58 percent for the game; we got away with that earlier in the year at times but tonight we didn’t get away with it, it cost us the game. And I’m not talking any one guy, I’m talking about as a team. So, you’ve got to look at what you can do better, and that is what we can do.”
CU committed only 11 turnovers, but four of them came in the final 2 minutes when Arizona was catching up. Counting the 5 extra minutes, the Wildcats outscored the Buffs 22-5 in the final 6:44. Boyle said he thought his team “got a little soft defensively at the end. Second half they shot 60 percent from the field and we’re one stop away from that game, we’re one or two free throws away from that game . . .
“I asked our guys to play hard, play smart, and to play together. I thought we played hard, I thought we played together, I thought at times we didn’t play smart and those are the things we have to learn as a young team on the road in an environment like this.”
The Buffs, who led by 10 points with 1:53 remaining in regulation, played the extra period minus Andre Roberson. He fouled out in the final 2 minutes of regulation with nine points and 11 rebounds.
For the first time since the opening game, Boyle changed his starting lineup, inserting the 6-6 freshmen Johnson in the place of the 6-4 senior Chen. And Boyle’s move paid immediate dividends as the Buffs started fast by slowing it down. CU controlled the pace and led by as many as 17 points (30-13) with 4:30 remaining in the first half.
CU pulled away with a 15-1 run, and “XJ” was instrumental in that spurt. After opening the scoring with a layup, he finished the half with 12 points, including a pair of the Buffs’ six three-pointers that tied their season high. They finished 10-of-21 from beyond the arc.
But CU was certain that Arizona would snap to life, and it happened in the half’s final 4:30. After their long drought (three field goals) in the opening 15 minutes, the Wildcats closed the half on a 14-4 run and trailed by only 7 (34-27) at intermission.
Helping Johnson with CU’s first-half scoring load was Booker, who contributed three of the Buffs’ treys and finished the half with 11 points. But a Booker miscue in the final 25 seconds also helped the Wildcats boost their momentum heading into their locker room. At the 3.5 second mark, a Booker turnover and subsequent foul sent Nick Johnson to the foul line.
He hit both free throws with 2.2 seconds showing, cutting the Buffs’ lead to 34-27 and finally awakening the McHale Center crowd. But Arizona’s total tied for its lowest of the season, and it matched its field goal total with seven turnovers.
The Buffs opened the second half with the same intensity as they did the first, outscoring the Wildcats 7-0 on two free throws by Scott, a three-pointer by Roberson from the right corner on an assist by Booker and a Roberson throw-down in transition on a sweet lob by Dinwiddie.
CU was up again by 14 (43-29), but the Buffs knew they couldn’t rest on that margin. And other factors came into play: About 51/2 minutes in, both teams had to sit a star each. Roberson went to his bench with three fouls and Solomon Hill to his with four fouls.
After Arizona pulled to within 10 (45-35), Chen replaced Roberson and promptly contributed a conventional three-point play, then hit a trey from the left corner as the Buffs went back ahead by 16 (56-40).
The Buffs were expecting a Wildcats run, but they withstood this one. Just shy of the 10-minute mark, Chen delivered another trey to push CU up 59-49, and the Buffs held that 10-point margin until Lyons hit a layup and Hill followed with a three-pointer.
Suddenly, Arizona was within six (64-58) with just over 6 minutes left.
No sweat for Chen. He hit consecutive layups – the second on a goal-tending call – to restore a double-digit CU lead (68-58) with 41/2 to play. The Buffs kept that 10-point advantage (73-63) on a trey by Booker from the left wing with 2:47 left.
Booker hit two free throws at the 1:53 mark for another 10-point CU lead (75-65), but a traditional three-point play by Lyons pulled the Wildcats to within 75-68 with 1:49 remaining.
With 1:33 left, Arizona trimmed CU’s lead to 78-73 on a three-pointer by Hill, then to 78-74 on one of two free throws by Johnson as Roberson committed a turnover and fouled out. The Wildcats caught the Buffs at 80-80 on Lyons’ pair of free throws, setting up Chen’s nullified three-pointer at the buzzer.
And if the replay monitor wasn’t kind to the Buffs, neither was overtime.
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