CU Women’s Basketball
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Buff women host b’ball tournament this weekend
Nov 22nd
ROBERSON EARNS FIRST HONOR: Forward Arielle Roberson was named the inaugural Pac-12 Conference Freshman of the Week for the week of Nov. 5-12. The Pac-12 has added Freshman of the Week to its weekly honors for the first time this season, joining the standard Player of the Week honor which this week went to Stanford’s Chiney Ogwumike. Roberson, a 6-1 forward from San Antonio, had a sparkling collegiate debut, scoring 16 points on 7-of-13 from the field as Colorado defeated Idaho 70-65 in its season opener on Nov. 11. She grabbed six rebounds, four of which came on the offensive end, while collecting five steals, two assists and two blocked shots. Her five steals were the most by a freshman in her CU debut since all-time leading scorer Brittany Spears had five in her initial game at San Francisco in 2007. Her final steal was critical as it came with under one minute left with the Buffaloes hanging on to a five-point lead. Roberson’s honor is CU’s second weekly award in the Pac-12 since the Buffaloes joined the conference in 2011.
Chucky Jeffery earned Pac-12 Player of the Week honors last December, ironically following a stellar performance (30 points, 10 rebounds) against this same Idaho squad. Jeffery and fellow senior Meagan Malcolm-Peck both earned Freshman of the Week honors in the Big 12 Conference, during the 2009-10 season.
ARIELLE & ANDRE: The Roberson’s are the only brother/sister tandem on the 2012-13 basketball rosters from the same school in the Pac-12 Conference. They’re one of five brother/sister tandems on 2012-13 basketball rosters in Division I. The Big Ten has two tandems, followed by
one each in the ACC, Mountain West and the Pac-12 Conferences. CU has another brother/sister pair on the ski team with freshmen Maria and Gustav Nordstrom from Sweden. Colorado (Pac-12): Arielle (Fr.) and Andre Roberson (Jr.) Air Force (Mountain West): Alicia (Sr.) and Marshall Leipprandt (Fr.) Indiana (Big Ten): Kaila (Fr.) and Jordan Hulls (Sr.) Ohio State (Big Ten): Caite (Fr.) and Aaron Craft (Jr.) Virginia (ACC): Sarah Beth (So.) and Tayor Barnette (Fr.)
SEEING DOUBLE: Colorado is used to getting double takes from fans and opponents, as the Buffaloes once again sport two pairs of identical twins on its roster. Brenna and Meagan Malcolm-Peck are senior wing players while Ashley and Brittany Wilson are junior guards. Brenna is the older of the two Malcolm-Pecks by 27 minutes. Ashley is the older of the Wilson twins, by only five minutes.
BUFFS SIGN FOUR TO NLI’s: Zoe Beard-Fails, Desiree Harris, Haley Smith and Briana Watts have signed National Letters of Intent to play basketball and continue their education at the University of Colorado in 2013-14 head coach Linda Lappe announced on Wednesday, the first day of the NCAA’s early signing period. Beard-Fails is a 6-2 forward from Herndon, Va., and attends Georgetown Day School in Washington D.C. She missed all but five games of her junior year with an ACL and meniscus tear, but is nearing full strength as her senior season commences. The 51st rated forward in the nation according to ESPN.com’s HoopGurlz, Beard-Fails averaged 27 points and nearly 18 rebounds as a sophomore for Georgetown Day in 2010-11, earning fourth team All-Met honors from the Washington Post.
Harris is a 5-8 guard from Oakland, Calif., who attends St. Joseph Notre Dame High school in Alameda. She averaged 23.5 points, 7.0 rebounds, 2.9 steals and 2.7 assists as a junior, helping the Pilots to the North Coast Section championship. Harris was a CIF All-State Division V second team selection as well as a Bay Shore Athletic League second team pick. Smith, a 6-0 wing from Sammamish, Wash., is getting ready for her senior season at Skyline High School. A do-it-all player for the Spartans, she averaged around seven points, five rebounds and just under two assists and steals per game as a junior. Smith is in her fourth varsity season with the Spartans and also has had a successful club career playing with the Tree of Hope program. ESPN.com’s HoopGurlz has her as the top prospect in the state of Washington and the 20th ranked wing in the nation. Watts, a 6-4 center from Fresno, Calif., will make her debut with Clovis West High School this winter after playing her first three years at rival Buchanan. She was the first commit of the 2013 class. Watts averaged nearly six points and just over six rebounds per game for Buchanan as a junior, contributing to the Bears’ 18-9 record and a spot in the CIF Central Section Division I semifinals. BUFFS IN
OPENERS: With its win over Idaho, Colorado improved to 34-5 (.872) all-time in season openers and 37-2 (.949) in all-time home openers. The Buffs opened the season with a home game for the 27th time in 39 seasons, and moved to a perfect 27-0 in those instances.
BUFFS IN EXHIBITION: Colorado improved to a perfect 23-0 in exhibition games with its 87-38 win over Western State University Colorado. The Buffaloes have outscored their exhibition opponents by just over 31 points per game (86.0 to 54.7). Colorado’s 38 points allowed against WSCU were its fewest in an exhibition since the Buffaloes beat Colorado Mines 58-31 in 2007. The 49-point margin was the most in an exhibition since the Buffaloes defeated Spartak Moscow 115-55 in 2002. The Buffaloes have played at least one exhibition game in all but one year (2009) since 1997. CU’s exhibition games have featured a mix of NCAA II schools, foreign teams and traveling all-star teams.
BUFFS PICKED NINTH: Coming off its first 20-win season in eight years, Colorado was picked to finish ninth in the Pac-12 in 2013, according to the league’s annual Preseason Coaches Poll and Media Poll. In the Coaches Poll, 2012 NCAA Women’s Final Four participant Stanford was picked to win the Pac-12, compiling the maximum amount of points (121) and first place votes (11) possible. 2012 Pac-12 runner-up and NCAA participant California claimed the other first place vote and was second in the poll (109). UCLA was third with 100 points followed by USC (91), Arizona State and Oregon State (67), Utah (56), Washington (54), Colorado (49), Washington State (40), Oregon (20) and Arizona (18). Colorado’s ninth place preseason rating is its highest in the last nine years since Buffaloes were picked to finish seventh in the 2004-05 Big 12 Coaches Poll. The Media Poll was nearly identical in order. Stanford was picked to win with 12 first place votes and 166 total. California was second with 155 points and two first place votes. UCLA was third (136) followed by USC (123), Oregon State (106), Arizona State (100), Washington (80), Utah (72), Colorado (57), Washington State (47), Oregon (25) and Arizona (22).
MEDIA TABS JEFFERY: Along with picking the order of Pac-12 finish, the media selected a preseason All-Pac-12 team. Senior guard Chucky Jeffery was one of six individuals selected, along with California’s Layshia Clarendon, Washington’s Jazmine Davis, Stanford’s Chiney Ogwumike, UCLA’s Markel Walker and Arizona’s Davellyn Whyte. BUFFS EXPERIENCED
FROM DEEP: While Colorado looks to achieve balance on its 2012-13 squad, there is no questioning its experience from shooting from the perimeter. The Buffaloes have four players with at least 50 career 3-point field goals, and all four rank among CU’s career Top 20. Senior Meagan Malcolm-Peck tops current Buffs with 81 and ranks 12th on CU’s all-time list. Junior Brittany Wilson is 14th all-time with 73. Lexy Kresl, who set CU’s freshman record in 2011-12 is 15th with 66. Senior Chucky Jeffery rounds out the current Buffs at 18th with 53.
JEFFERY MOVING UP CAREER LADDERS: Junior guard Chucky Jeffery ranks among Colorado’s all-time leaders in several categories. She is sixth in assists (362), ninth in steals (217), 12th in rebounds (669), 16th in blocks (57), 17th in field-goals made (458), 18th in scoring (1,223), 3-point field goals made (53) and free-throws made (254). Colorado is 10-7 in its last 17 true road games, including postseason, dating back to the end of the 2010-11 season.
CU will make its first television appearance on Dec. 11 at Denver on ROOT Sports Rocky Mountain. The Buffaloes make their Pac-12 Network debut on Friday, Jan. 4 against defending league champion Stanford; their first of four straight televised games on the network. Colorado will have fi ve straight road games televised beginning with Utah on Jan. 13, through a Super Bowl Sunday match-up at USC on Feb. 3. CU’s final regular season televised game will be Feb. 8 at home against Oregon State. Entering the 2012-13 season, CU has appeared on 99 regional or national telecasts over the previous 11 seasons.
Colorado Women’s B-ball Team’s Front Court Dominates In 78-55 Win At UMKC
Nov 18th
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – One freshman forward started, one finished. No matter the order of appearance the recipe provided a winning combination for Colorado.
Arielle Roberson and Jamee Swan combined for 37 points on 71 percent shooting as Colorado defeated Missouri-Kansas City, 78-55, Sunday afternoon at the Swinney Recreation Center on the UMKC campus.
Colorado improved to 2-0, claiming its 15th straight win over nonconference regular season opponents dating back to 2010. UMKC drops to 2-2.
Swan, making her first career start, scored 10 of her 14 points in the first half to give the Buffaloes a good start. After picking up her third foul early in the second half, Roberson stepped in scoring 19 of her game-high 23 points in the last 20 minutes.
Roberson was 9-of-12 from the field, hit all five free throw attempts and grabbed six rebounds. Swan was 6-of-9 from the floor had three rebounds and an assist.
The freshman front court duo helped the Buffaloes dominate in the paint, outscoring the Kangaroos 42-14 inside.
“I give all the credit to my teammates,” Roberson said. “We knew coming out of the locker room we needed to push the ball and run more, really turn it up in the second half.
“I knew I had to bring defensive intensity and that led to offensive intensity for everybody.”
Roberson and Swan were the beneficiaries of a Colorado offense that picked apart the UMKC zone; putting on a passing clinic from all five positions. The Buffaloes had 17 assists on 32 made shots and overall shot 47 percent for the game.
That offense ran through forward Jen Reese and center Rachel Hargis. Playing in the high post, Reese and Hargis continually made the right pass, either finding Roberson and Swan on the low block or dishing out to continue through the guards.
Officially the two combined for six assists, but their initial reads led to plenty of good looks for the Buffaloes all afternoon.
Reese also had 10 points on 5-of-8 shooting with eight rebounds. Hargis made 3-of-4 field goals finishing with eight points.
“Our four post players, Arielle, Rachel, Jamee and Jen really dominated the game,” CU head coach Linda Lappe said. “They really understood what we were trying to do in our zone offense. I thought they did a fantastic job of being a presence on the inside.”
After Lauren Dudding put UMKC up with a 3-pointer on its initial possession, Colorado scored nine straight including two buckets from Swan.
UMKC briefly retook the lead with a 7-0 run of its own for a 10-9 advantage six minutes in. Roberson and Swan had back-to-back scores to put CU up for good.
The Kangaroos kept CU close early. Eilise O’Connor scored eight of her 10 points in the first half as UMKC pulled to within two at 18-16, but then the Buffaloes went to work. Colorado scored on five of its next six possessions during an 11-0 run to take a 29-16 lead. Hargis had a three point play and Roberson and Reese each scored on put-backs off CU misses.
“The start was important, we really needed that to kick-start our momentum,” Swan said. “Starting off great helps us finish great.”
Offensive rebounding was key for the Buffaloes, grabbing 19 which led to 22 second chance points. Overall Colorado enjoyed a 44-29 advantage on the boards.
“Offensive rebounding was a huge improvement (from the season opener),” Lappe said. “We crashed the glass against the zone and got a lot of put-backs. The effort on the offensive glass was fantastic.
Colorado led by nine at the half (36-27). UMKC’s Kim Nezianya quickly converted conventional 3-point play to cut the CU lead to six, and also gave Swan her third foul. From there Roberson shined.
The San Antonio native scored 14 points in the first six minutes of the half as the Buffaloes began to pull away. She scored six in a row as CU rebuilt a double-digit lead at 46-35. After a pair of Hailey Houser free throws, CU put the game away with a 13-0 run. Following a Reese jumper and a transition layup from Lexy Kresl, Roberson scored the next seven as the Buffaloes won their fifth straight nonconference regular season game away from Boulder.
Nezianya led UMKC with 17 points and eight rebounds.
Colorado returns home to host the 26th annual Omni Hotels Classic Nov. 23-24 at the Coors Events Center. The tournament starts with Auburn vs. San Diego State on Friday, Nov. 23, at 5 p.m. followed by Colorado and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi at 7:30 p.m. On Saturday the consolation game will be played at 5 p.m. followed by the championship at 7:30 p.m.
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Balanced Buffs Hold Off Vandals In Opener
Nov 12th
BOULDER – Linda Lappe knew depth would be among her third Colorado women’s basketball team’s strong suits – and it took only one game into the 2012-13 season for verification.
With returning scoring leader Chucky Jeffery benched for a violation of team rules, CU got contributions of some variety from nearly everyone Lappe used in a 70-65 win over Idaho on Sunday afternoon.
“Everybody gave us good minutes . . . the players off the bench came in and did their jobs,” Lappe said. “Everybody stepped up at different times. No one player dominated the game, and that’s what you want to see.”
CU junior guard Brittany Wilson led all scorers with 18 points, including eight-of-eight from the free throw line. Four of Wilson’s foul shots were clutch, coming in the final 17.9 seconds as the Buffaloes were holding off the hard-to-bury Vandals. Her eight made free throws were a career high, her eight attempts tied a career high.
The Buffs also received a strong debut performance from Arielle Roberson, and if a single player did flirt with dominance at the Coors Events Center, it would be the redshirt freshman from San Antonio.
Roberson, an athletic 6-1 forward, sat out her first season while rehabilitating from hip surgery. CU coaches believed her return would boost the Buffs’ inside play as well as their defense – and they were correct.
In addition to her 16 points, Roberson collected six rebounds and blocked two shots. She also contributed five steals – one in the final minutes when the Vandals were continuing to make the Buffs uncomfortable.
“She did some really good things,” Lappe said. “In the second half, there was one stretch where she came off the bench for the very last time and we really needed her to step up. She did that.”
Of Roberson’s overall contribution, Lappe added, “That’s who Arielle is . . . she can score in a lot of different ways. She’s going to play a lot of different positions for us. She’s probably a little more effective on the block than anywhere else, but she’s going to keep getting better than what we saw today.”
After a year’s absence, Roberson simply was elated to get back onto the court. “I just wanted to go out and play like I know I can and show everybody what I can bring to this team,” she said. “My family was here (the Robersons watched Arielle’s older brother, Andre, open with the CU men’s team on Friday night) and of course it was my first game, so that’s extra motivation as well. I also don’t like to lose, so I think my drive to win was definitely a good push.”
And the Buffs definitely needed it to finally put away the Vandals, who lost their opening game at Wyoming 86-53. Idaho scored Sunday’s first basket, but that 2-0 lead was the visiting team’s last advantage. That doesn’t mean CU went unchallenged the rest of the way; in fact, the Buffs’ first afternoon on the court was a wire-to-wire fight.
“It was definitely tighter than we thought it was going to be,” Brittany Wilson said. “I think you see what we’re saying about this team being so special now . . . you never think your first game is going to be so close, but it was. We were about to come together as a team; we fought until the end and ended up coming out on top.”
Lappe credited Idaho: “They came out and fought and kept coming at us, which was great. It was a great game for us to be in.”
Of the ten players Lappe used, nine scored; and nine of those ten players’ minutes were in double figures. Lappe cited off-the-bench contributions by Lexy Kresl, who drained three-pointers on two of CU’s first three second-half possessions, and Jen Reese, who scored six of her eight points during the first 10 minutes of the second half. Roberson also got half of her total during that span.
Lappe said Jeffery could be reinstated for CU’s trip to Missouri-Kansas City on Sunday, Nov. 18. Had Jeffery not been in the lineup last season against Idaho, the Buffs would have been in trouble. With the Vandals up 59-58 with just over 2 minutes remaining in that meeting, Jeffery went on a tear, scoring seven of her career-best 30 points to rescue the Buffs, 68-59.
But CU would have to do without Jeffery this time around – and her teammates coped well. Idaho’s Ali Forde scored the game’s first points, but the Vandals’ 2-0 lead – the last of the afternoon – was quickly erased by a Meagan Malcolm-Peck three-pointer. Roberson took over from there, scoring CU’s next six points. Malcolm-Peck and Brittany Wilson combined for 10 of the next 15 points as the Buffs built an 11-point (25-14) cushion.
The Vandals wouldn’t go away then or later. They used an 11-2 run to pull to 27-25, before baskets by Jasmine Sborov and Rachel Hargis gave the Buffs a 31-26 halftime lead.
CU ended the first half with 11 turnovers, a number that didn’t please Lappe. But in the second half, especially coming out of time outs, she said her team’s overall execution was better: “We did a much better job . . . of scoring or at least getting a shot out of a timeout and being a little bit more careful with the ball, which you could see in our turnovers.” CU cut its second-half turnovers to seven, finishing with 18.
Behind Kresl’s three-point shooting and Roberson’s inside work, the Buffs built a pair of eight-point leads in the first 6 minutes of the second half. Kresl pair of treys during that span marked her 19th career game with two or more three-pointers.
But the Vandals weren’t lacking for long-distance shooters. They got treys from Connie Ballestero, Christina Salvatore and Stacey Barr to creep to within four (43-39) with 14 minutes to play.
“We have seen it; we saw it last year a little bit,” Lappe said of Idaho’s long balls. “They have quick releases and get off shots fast.”
Thanks to Roberson, CU was able to temporarily pull away before Idaho could fashion its next run. She scored consecutive baskets to restore a double-digit Buffs lead (54-44), but the Vandals weren’t folding.
They closed to 56-50 on a conventional three-point play by Alyssa Charlston (team-best 16 points) and a trey by Krissy Karr, then to 56-52 on another basket by Charlston with just over 5:30 remaining. Another three-pointer by Karr less than 2 minutes later pulled Idaho to three back (58-55), but CU answered with one of two free throws by Roberson and an Ashley Wilson layup to go ahead 61-55.
The Vandals answered on three of four free throws by Charlston to cut their deficit to 61-60 with 3:04 remaining. Ashley Wilson responded with another layup for a 63-60 CU lead. After an Idaho miss and a CU rebound, Reese hit a pair of clutch foul shots to put the Buffs up 65-60 with 51.6 seconds to play, and Roberson followed by hitting one of two free throws 11 seconds later for a 66-60 CU advantage.
Idaho called timeout with 37.2 seconds remaining, then another with 22.5 showing after the Vandals couldn’t get off a shot. When they did, they missed, but a double foul was called. Brittany Wilson and Charlston each made their free throws (68-62), then Barr hit a long trey to draw the Vandals to within 68-65.
With 13.8 seconds left, Brittany Wilson’s pair of foul shots gave the Buffs their final five-point advantage.
“Win No. 1 is good to get; it feels good,” Lappe said. “It was great to play somebody else other than ourselves. We have a lot of things to work on but we’re happy where we’re at . . . we had a lot of different players step up in crucial situations, which was good to see.”
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