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Dec 26th
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CU MBB team–Close but no cigar
Dec 23rd
By B.G. Brooks, CUBuffs.com Contributing Editor
LAS VEGAS – Colorado cut a 12-point Oklahoma State lead to four in the final minute here Saturday night, but that’s where the Buffaloes’ rally and their 10-game winning streak would stop. The No. 7 Cowboys held on for a 78-73 win in the second game of the MGM Grand Showcase.
No. 20 CU (10-2) struggled to get timely stops and had just as much trouble finding an offensive rhythm, and when Phil Forte III drained a long trey just under the 3-minute mark Okie State (11-1) had a 73-61 lead. The Buffs were running out of chances and time, but a 10-2 flurry brought them to within 75-71 on a put-back by Josh Scott with 26 seconds to play.
OSU’s Marcus Smart hit a pair of free throws (77-71) with 23.4 seconds remaining but Scott answered with two (77-73) at the 16-second mark. Two seconds later, Forte hit one of two foul shots for the Cowboys’ final margin.
“I take the blame for this loss,” said CU coach Tad Boyle. “As a coach I didn’t do a good job on the sideline. I didn’t have our team ready to play tonight for whatever reason. I’ve got to look myself in the mirror.”
In hindsight, Boyle questioned whether he had the Buffs practice as much as necessary during semester finals week which preceded Saturday’s game. “That’s where I take responsibility as a coach, coming off of finals and we had two practices as a team,” he said. “I thought that at this time of the season we could carry over without those lengthy practices through finals; I want to respect our guys as students. So, as a basketball coach it’s really hard to take that time and back off, and maybe that hurt us tonight. It’s not an excuse, it’s just the fact that we weren’t as sharp and we need to become sharper and the only way you can do that is by practicing.”
Nonetheless, Boyle added, “We have so much room for improvement, we still haven’t put a (complete) game together, and yet we played the No. 7 team in the country to a five-point game on a neutral court and we don’t feel like we played well, at all.”
CU junior guard
disagreed with Boyle shouldering the loss. “I don’t think the blame goes on coach Boyle,” he said. “He’s just tough on himself – just like I am on myself . . . the only thing we maybe could have done better was a have a couple more days of practice.”
The Cowboys’ 78 points were the most the Buffs have allowed this season. OSU shot 61.9 percent from the field (13-of-21) in the second half and finished at 52.1 percent (25-of-48). CU shot only 40.6 percent from the field (26-of-64). The Buffs outrebounded the Cowboys 41-30 and got 21 second-chance points to the Cowboys’ four.
CU junior guard Spencer Dinwiddie called OSU’s second-half shooting percentage “very disappointing . . . we just dug ourselves a hole.” But the self-burial started in the first half.
Among Boyle’s pre-game goals was to limit the Cowboys’ layups, targeting six as a minimum to give the Buffs the best chance of winning. That was six for the game – not the first half.
But that’s what CU allowed in the first 20 minutes, which helped Okie State roll to a 32-26 lead at intermission. Also contributing were nine of the Buffs’ 14 total turnovers, which resulted in 11 Cowboys points (20 for the game off). Smart, who finished with 18 points, and Markel Brown, who scored a game-best 23, got to the rim unimpeded twice each in the opening half, with the other two layups scored by Kamari Murphy and Michael Cobbins.
The Buffs tightened their interior defense by a couple of clicks, allowing five second-half layups. But the Cowboys’ presented other offensive problems – namely a pair of late, long treys by Forte, who scored 16 points off the bench on four-of-seven shooting from beyond the arc and four-of-seven free throws.
Dinwiddie, who finished with 19 points, called Forte’s treys “timely” and said the Buffs’ first-half turnovers and their porous second-half defense are “never good enough against a good team. Those are probably the three (biggest) things.”
CU got a double-double from Scott – 20 points, tying a season high, and 12 rebounds. Scott hit 10-of-13 free throws and scored 18 of his total in the second half, when Boyle said the Buffs began to focus more on getting the ball inside: “We had 17 paint touches in the first half; we want 50 for the game.”
“If we could get that first half back and play like we did in the second, I think it would be a different outcome,” Scott said, referring more to his team’s nine turnovers and yielding six layups than him not getting more touches.
The Buffs’ largest lead was three points (7-4) following a five-point burst by Booker. That also was CU’s last lead, with four ties following before intermission.
But permitting the six layups undoubtedly wasn’t Boyle’s only beef with his Buffs in the first half. In addition to their nine turnovers, they made a season-low (for a first half) three assists and got to the free throw line just once (Xavier Johnson hit one of two). CU finished the night making 15-of-20 free throws – not close to an average night’s work for the Buffs – while OSU made 23-of-35.
“Coming into this game, we’re eighth in the country in free throw attempts,” Boyle said. “We’re eighth in the country for free throws made; we didn’t get to the free throw line tonight, for whatever reason. Obviously we have to figure out how to score when we’re not getting to the free throw line, but that’s frustrating when you know over an 11 game schedule how many free throws you shoot and that’s a big part of your offensive identity and then you don’t get to the free throw line – for whatever reason – frustration sets in a little bit. We’ve got to get better in that regard, so we have to become a better half court execution team.”
Boyle also said the Cowboys’ zone defense in the second half “got us standing, which is exactly what they want, but we didn’t handle that well at times.”
Also, getting forward Wesley Gordon back after a two-game absence didn’t help CU that much in the opening half. At the 16:06 mark, Gordon was whistled for his second foul and went to the bench with two rebounds and a steal.
He didn’t return (or score) until the second half opened, hitting a foul line jumper – his only points for the night – that brought the Buffs to 34-30. A Booker layup off a steal by Scott cut the deficit to 34-32 half a minute later. But the Cowboys widened their lead to five points (37-32) on one of three free throws by Smart and a jumper by Brown with just over 161/2 minutes remaining.
Okie State’s advantage ballooned to eight (44-36) before Dinwiddie hit a trey from the left corner and one of two free by Scott cut the Buffs’ deficit in half (44-40). The Cowboys went another layup spree, getting three – including a dunk and free throw by Smart – and a pair of treys by Forte to take their first double-figure lead of the night (63-53) with 7:32 to play. At that point, Boyle tried to regroup his troops with a timeout. It didn’t help immediately, but the Buffs kept grinding.
“I love the toughness, and the grit, and the fight in our team, and I have a lot of respect for Oklahoma State and their players,” Boyle said. “t’s just disappointing because we will never have this opportunity again unless were fortunate enough to get them in the (NCAA) tournament.”
The Buffs don’t play again until Saturday, Dec. 28 when they host Georgia at the Coors Events Center. Their first post-Christmas practice is scheduled for Thursday.
Runner-up national champs Louisville beat CU women
Dec 22nd
Release: December 21, 2013
By: Troy Andre, Assistant SID
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Lexy Kresl had 17 points and Jen Reese corralled her second career double-double, but Louisville had a little bit more Saturday afternoon at the KFC Yum! Center as the No. 7 ranked Cardinals outlasted No. 11 Colorado 69-62.
Louisville All-American candidate Shoni Schimmel had a game-high 30 points, including 13-of-16 from the line as Cardinals improved to 12-1.
Reese had 14 points despite an off-day from the floor (4-of-14), and pulled down a team-season-high 14 rebounds for the Buffaloes (9-1) who saw their 33-game nonconference regular season win streak end.
It was a tough, physical battle, the kind one would expect from a game between two of the nation’s top teams. But that aggressiveness cost both teams at times; and Colorado a little more in the end. A total of 56 fouls were called, 32 on Colorado. The teams combined for 70 free throw attempts, Louisville hitting 24-of-40 while the Buffaloes were 17-of-30.
Colorado held a potent Louisville offense well below its average. The Cardinals entered the game averaging over 90 points per game, and over 100 in their last four. The Buffaloes were able to slow Louisville down and force the 2013 NCAA runner-ups to score in the half court.
“They get a lot of their points in transition,” Kresl said. “One of our goals was to slow them down and make them execute their plays and that worked to our advantage.”
But Colorado gave the Cardinals more opportunities than they hoped. The Buffaloes were outrebounded for the first time this year, 52-47. Louisville crashed the offensive glass, pulling down 21 on that side of the court. Even though second-chance points were even (11-11), it was the missed opportunities for stops that hurt the Buffs.
“Defensive rebounding is something that we pride ourselves on, but it let us down,” CU head coach Linda Lappe said. “I knew offensive rebounding was something they were good at. At the end of the game it came down to if we could make stops, but overall proud of our effort; how hard we played.”
“Just not boxing out, they got a few too many opportunities on the offensive boards,” Kresl added.
Despite the rebounding struggles, Colorado was in the game the whole way as neither team led by more than seven points and featured nine lead changes.
Kresl gave Colorado an early 8-5 lead with a 3-pointer, but
LEXY KRESYL scored 17-points in the game.
Bria Smith hit back-to-back jumpers to even the game at 10-10.
The Cardinals pushed their lead to 24-18 on a Sara Hammond layup with 8:01 left in the first half, but Colorado answered with its biggest run.
Kresl, who scored 15 of her 17 points in the first half, answered Hammond with a jumper that set off a 13-0 run. Arielle Roberson put back a Reese miss and a pair of Kresl free throws tied the game at 24-24.
Lauren Huggins broke the tie with a long 3-pointer to give the Buffaloes a 27-24 lead, forcing a Louisville timeout. At the beginning of the timeout Louisville’s bench received a technical foul giving the Buffaloes an opportunity to extend the lead.
Kresl hit the two technical free throws coming out of the timeout to give the Buffaloes their largest lead at 29-24. Unfortunately that was it for Colorado in the first half and the Cardinals came storming back.
Schimmel finally ended Colorado’s run with a runner in the lane, drew a foul and completed the 3-point play. Younger sister Jude Schimmel then connected on a pair of fast break layups in the closing minutes as a 9-0 run gave the Cardinals a 33-29 lead at the half.
Colorado quickly erased the Louisville halftime lead as a Sborov 3-pointer ended a 7-2 CU run out of the break for a 36-35 Buffs lead.
However, shortly after that the fouls started to catch up with Colorado. Sborov picked up her third moments after her 3-pointer. Brittany Wilson then picked up No. 4 with nearly 13 minutes left with Ashley Wilson and Roberson matching that total moments later.
Still the Buffaloes continued to stay close. Sborov hit a bucket to tie the game at 46-46 with 9:44 remaining, but the Cardinals reeled off seven straight behind the Schimmel sisters.
Louisville then kept Colorado just out of reach, mainly from the foul line. The Cardinals, who entered the game hitting 51 percent from the floor on the season, made just 34 percent for the game, and only 29 percent (9-of-31) in the final 20 minutes.
The trouble was Colorado wasn’t much better. A 46-percent shooting team for the season, CU connected on just 37 percent, although the Buffaloes were closer to their average in the second half (45 percent).
“(Louisville) helped us get ready for (Pac-12) conference,” Kresl said. “We grew as a team throughout the game.”
In the end, the game was put away at the line. Louisville hit 18-of-24 from the line in the second half compared to just 10-of-18 for Colorado.
The Buffs did get a few stops, a pair of free throws by Kresl and one each from Roberson and Reese cut the Louisville lead to 63-59 with 1:10 left. The defense came up big when Jude Schimmel missed a jumper with under a minute left, and Roberson grabbed the rebound. Rachel Hargis eventually ended up at the line, hitting 1-of-2 to make it a one possession game at 63-60.
But that was it as Shoni Schimmel clamped down hitting four free throws down the stretch, and scored the final points on a breakaway basket in the closing seconds.
“I like how our team fought throughout the game,” Lappe said. “You want to be in a position to have a chance to win at the end of the game; we had that, but just didn’t make enough plays down the stretch. We learned a lot about this game. You want nonconference to prepare you for conference, and we felt this did that today.”
Colorado will return to action on Sunday, Dec. 29, by hosting Southern Utah at 2 p.m. at the Coors Events Center.
Colorado Buffaloes Women’s Basketball
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