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CU Women’s Balance Keys Lopsided Win Against Oregon Ducks
Feb 10th
Story by Caryn Maconi, CUBuffs.com
BOULDER – Four players scored in double figures Sunday afternoon to lead the No. 21/25 Colorado women’s basketball team to an 84-59 Pac-12 Conference romp past Oregon at the Coors Events Center.
The 84-point total ties the highest point total of the season for the Buffs, as they scored 84 against New Mexico in non-conference play. It is the fourth time the Buffs have scored more than 80 this season and the first so far in Pac-12 play.
With the win, Colorado improves to 18-5 overall and 7-5 in the Pac-12. CU’s seven conference wins to date are more than the team recorded in total last season (6-12). The Buffs had not won seven or more conference matchups in a season since finishing the 2004 Big 12 schedule at 11-5.
Junior guard Brittany Wilson led CU with 16 points, while senior guard Chucky Jeffery added 15 points and 15 rebounds. Jeffery’s totals marked her 27th career double-double and just the fourth time she has recorded 15 of each.
“To be able to score just as much as you rebound, that’s pretty amazing,” sophomore guard Lexy Kresl said of Jeffery’s performance. Kresl and junior center Rachel Hargis added 12 points and 10, respectively, while four other players scored at least six.
Hargis said her team prepared specifically to face Oregon’s zone defense, something the Buffs haven’t seen much of from opponents this season.
“Coach talked to us about moving the ball well, just keeping it moving and not holding the ball as much,” Hargis said. “Playing a zone you don’t really expect to score that much inside, but coach kept talking to us about attacking and cutting to open areas, and that’s what I focused on.”
Colorado started the first half slow, allowing Oregon to go on a 10-3 run in the first 3:15 and record three blocks in the first five minutes.
“B-Will” played her best game against a PAC- 12 team
“I didn’t think we were being very aggressive, we were letting them score however they wanted to score with not very many passes,” said CU head coach Linda Lappe. “We didn’t look like we were ready for what they were bringing, so we just needed to take a deep breath and get back out there.”
Once the Buffs had regrouped and gotten a chance to assess Oregon’s top scorers, they made the necessary adjustments on defense to stop the Ducks’ streak.
“We recognized who was going to be scoring and who was going to be shooting,” Kresl said. “We definitely tried to pick up the pressure on them more and play them a little bit closer.”
And with a more efficient defense came a ramped-up offense, as Jeffery and Wilson hit three consecutive three-pointers to regain a four-point lead with 13:40 left in the half.
Oregon didn’t give in easily and even briefly took the lead again with 7:45 on the clock. CU’s offense responded with force, though, outscoring Oregon 20-6 in the final 7:20 to enter intermission with a 43-31 advantage.
That momentum more than carried through halftime, as the Buffs went on an immediate 10-0 run to go up 20 (53-33). The Ducks were unable to recover, and with three minutes remaining a Hargis basket put the Buffs up 27 (80-53).
Colorado would maintain that energy until the final buzzer.
“It was a good game, we shared the ball a lot as a team, had 17 assists,” Wilson said. “We hit open shots, played great defense, so I think it was a team effort … I don’t think you could ask for anything more.”
Eleven Colorado players saw time on the court at some point Sunday, including freshman guard Kyleesha Weston and walk-on freshman guard Alexus Atchley. Atchley scored her first two career points in the last minute of the game.
“Anytime you can get players experience is important, especially young players,” Lappe said. “Especially when you play that tempo, you have to play ten players to stay fresh. We knew it was going to be a fast-paced game today, and everybody who came in just kept that pace going.”
CU shot 44.9 percent from the field, recording 17 assists and just 12 turnovers. Meanwhile, the Ducks were held to 38.6 percent from the field and recorded 21 turnovers.
Another highlight for the Colorado defense its steals, recording 16 compared to Oregon’s six. The Buffs have recorded 54 combined steals in the last four games, something Lappe credits to an increasing toughness on the defensive end.
“It is a lot of steals. It’s aggressiveness, it’s positioning, it’s understanding where you are supposed to be defensively and helping each other out,” Lappe said. “Defense is the bread and butter, and if we continue to do that we will be a really good team.”
The CU women hit the road once again next week, playing at Arizona on Friday (7 p.m., MST) and at Arizona State on Sunday (2 p.m., MST).
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CU Women’s B-ball Team Beats Oregon St. Beavers in Annual Pink Game
Feb 9th
Story by Caryn Maconi, CUBuffs.com
University of Colorado senior guard Chucky Jeffery earned her 1,500th career point and 26th career double-double Friday night in a 61-47 win over Oregon State.
It was a long-awaited return to the Coors Events Center for the Buffs, who wrapped up a four-game California swing with a split against UCLA and USC last weekend.
The CU women wore pink-accented uniforms in honor of the annual “Play 4 Kay” game to support breast cancer awareness.
“It was breast cancer week, and coach talked about attacking because that’s what the women with breast cancer have to do,” said junior guard Brittany Wilson, who grabbed a game-high five steals. “They have to attack, they have to fight. So we came down, we attacked, we came after loose balls, and forced them into those (24) turnovers.”
CU put the heat on the visitors early on, going on a 9-0 run before OSU scored its first basket of the game with 14:09 left in the half.
Wilson said that solid start was crucial for the Buffs, as they were battling a strong defensive team ranked sixth in the nation in blocks at 6.1 per game.
“We knew we had to come out and set a statement or they would keep coming at us,” Wilson said, “and you can’t give a team like that confidence.”
But the Beavers answered back, hitting four three-pointers in five minutes to make it 21-16 with six minutes remaining.
Thanks to a solid 78.6 percent on 14 opportunities from the free throw line, CU was able to hold onto that narrow lead and enter intermission still up five (28-23).
“Oregon State is a good team, they hustle and they scrap the entire game,” Jeffery said. “They weren’t going away, so we knew we had to go on a run and we had to get it up a little bit … that was huge for us to get this win.”
The second half began in a similar fashion as the first, as the Buffs went on a 7-0 run with five straight points by Jeffery and two made free throws by forward Arielle Roberson.
This time, though, the momentum stuck.
Colorado built its largest lead of the game, 15, with eight minutes left on the clock. From there, the Ducks would not pull closer than eight.
Shooting 7-of-10 free throws to end the game, the Buffs widened the gap back to 14 and closed with a 61-47 victory.
Jeffery led the Buffs in scoring with 22 points, adding 11 rebounds and a season-high three blocks. Sophomore forward Jen Reese also scored in double figures with 10 points, while Roberson added nine.
Guard Jamie Weisner was the biggest force on the court for the Beavers, as the freshman scored 22 total points and added seven rebounds; she was the only OSU player with more than seven points.
“Weisner’s tough,” said Colorado head coach Linda Lappe. “She plays so hard, she’s physical, she never quits. She’s a tough matchup for anybody in the league, so you’ve got to give her a lot of credit. She kept them in the game.”
With the win, CU improves to 17-5 overall, 6-5 in the Pac-12 Conference, while OSU falls to 9-14 and 3-8 in conference play.
Colorado returns to the Coors Events Center Sunday at 1:30 p.m. to take on the University of Oregon. After falling to Utah 67-47 Friday night, the Ducks are ranked last in the Pac-12 with a 1-10 record in the conference.
In fact, the Buffs have just one opponent remaining in the regular season, Washington, that is currently ranked higher in the conference standings.
Wilson, however, said her team won’t get comfortable just yet.
“Being in the Pac-12, you never know what team is going to come out,” Wilson said. “You have to play every team and respect them. This is a bottom-to-top hard conference to play, and if you give a team confidence, they’ll keep shooting and keep coming back at you. You don’t want to relax too much.”
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Roberson, CU Men Stay With It, Edge Ducks
Feb 8th
EUGENE, Ore. – Colorado basketball coach Tad Boyle had wanted his Buffaloes to play a 40-minute game, and it took them nearly that long to take their first lead on Thursday night against No. 19 Oregon.
But when CU finally got its advantage, it held. Andre Roberson’s lay-in with 29.5 seconds to play, coupled with intense defense on the Ducks over the final 41/2 minutes earned the Buffs a dramatic 48-47 win at Matt Knight Arena.
Thursday night marked CU’s first win in Eugene in 58 years, and it was accomplished in the manner Boyle expected. “Playing Oregon is like a street fight; they’re tough,” he said. “And we tried to prepare our guys for that . . . we gutted it out, we didn’t play our best. We won with our defense and our rebounding at the end.”
CU’s offense was hard to find; the Buffs’ winning total was their fewest in the modern shot clock era. The last time CU won while scoring fewer than 50 points was on Feb. 2, 1967 in a 49-42 victory over Oklahoma State.
On Thursday night, the Buffs shot only 36.5 percent from the field, but they held the Ducks to 36.2 percent. CU’s defense was particularly unforgiving in the final 4:26, holding the Ducks scoreless after they had taken a 47-40 lead.
“You shoot 36 percent on the road . . . you find a way,” Boyle said. “Hopefully our guys can learn from that and take some confidence from it. We’re going to start playing better offensively and making some shots and become more efficient. We’re in a little bit of a funk offensively right now, but we’ll break out of it.”
CU had only one player in double figures – Roberson, who collected his 35th career double-double with 10 points and 13 rebounds. It his Pac-12 Conference leading 10th double-double this season.
Roberson scored four of his points and grabbed three of his rebounds in the final 2:15. “There was a look in his eye, a determination, an energy that I hadn’t seen before,” Boyle said. “It was reminiscent of what I saw out of Carlon (Brown) and Nate (Tomlinson) and Austin (Dufault) towards the end of last year. Those seniors said we’re going to get this done and find a way. Andre was the same way.”
Said Roberson: “I didn’t want us to lose, and it starts with me . . . I just took it on myself to go out and play defense and continue to fight. We were still right there; we just weren’t getting over that hump to get the lead. I tip my hat to each and every one of our guys.”
The first tip of his hat might go to Spencer Dinwiddie, whose late defense was as critical as Roberson’s, according to Boyle. Dinwiddie pressured E.J. Singler on Oregon’s final full possession into a difficult shot, appearing to get a piece of the ball.
Said Boyle: “Spencer was terrific . . . those two guys (Dinwiddie, Roberson) were the difference in the game for us defensively. He played great defense (on Singler). Whether he got a touch, I don’t know. We had two fouls to give. We talked about maybe giving one on the drive or on the dribble. We didn’t want to foul a shooter, obviously, (Oregon) being down one. We showed very good judgment there.”
Dinwiddie, who finished with eight points and four assists, gave more credit to Roberson’s ‘D’ than his own. He also said ‘Dre’ “pulled down every single big board we needed. One time he even let out a primal scream after he got one of those boards. He’s big for us because he’s our best rebounder and that means so much for us. As you saw, with his nose for the ball, he got the last shot blocked, got it right back, scored it and it didn’t even faze him. He won the game for us.”
After falling short last weekend in a disheartening loss at Utah, CU (15-7, 5-5) needed a healing night on the court. So did Oregon (18-5, 7-3) after dropping a pair of games in the Bay Area. But it was the Buffs who finished strong this time, closing out the game with an 8-0 run and improving to 2-2 against ranked opponents this season.
CU also has beaten then-No. 16 Baylor but lost at then-No. 3 Arizona and then-No. 9 Kansas. The Buffs’ last road win against a ranked opponent was on Jan. 12, 2011, when they defeated No. 21 Kansas State 74-66.
Oregon freshman point guard Dominic Artis missed his fourth straight game with a foot injury. But until the final minutes, the Ducks weren’t as turnover prone Thursday as they had been in their previous three games, when they totaled 65. By halftime, forging a five-point lead, Oregon had committed just four turnovers to CU’s eight.
But the Buffs committed only four second-half turnovers and never succumbed to the Ducks’ pressure. Oregon also finished with a dozen turnovers.
The Buffs never led in the opening half and trailed by as many as eight points (15-7) with 11 minutes before the break. During the stretch when they fell behind by that margin, they strayed from what Boyle wanted from them – specifically, to attack the rim in transition and run after getting stops. Problem was, the stops weren’t plentiful enough to allow CU to speed up its transition game. The Buffs stayed out of sorts offensively for nearly 6 minutes.
“I’m really proud of our players, to win when you don’t play your best,” said Boyle. “You have to do it at some point of the year, you just do, and multiple times sometimes because it’s not always going to be pretty.”
After the Ducks took their eight-point first-half lead, the Buffs got strong minutes off the bench from Jeremy Adams, who hit a pair of free throws and three-pointer during a 10-2 run that pulled CU into a 17-17 tie.
But Oregon, responding with a 9-2 surge, went back on top by seven points (26-19) and CU needed a turnaround jumper by Josh Scott at the halftime buzzer to trail 28-23 at intermission.
Oregon got 12 first-half points from Singler and eight off the bench from Emory. Singler and Emery finished with 14 each for the Ducks, who had won 20 consecutive home games stretching back to the 2011-12 season (14-0 this season).
The Buffs opened the second half with a traditional three-point play from Dinwiddie – his first points of the game. That cut the Ducks’ lead to 28-26 with 17:57 to play, and another Dinwiddie layup brought CU to within 30-28 less than a minute later.
An Xavier Johnson trey – his second of the game – pulled the Buffs to within 32-31 with just over 15 minutes remaining. But the Ducks outscored their visitors 7-2 over the next 4 minutes and increased their advantage to 39-33 with 11:02 left.
CU pulled to within 47-43 at the 3:01 mark on one of two free throws by Askia Booker, to 47-44 on one of two foul shots by Scott, then to 47-46 on a putback by Roberson with 2:07 to play.
After each team squandered a possession apiece, the Buffs got the ball after an offensive foul by Singler with 50.1 seconds remaining. Boyle called timeout with 46.2 seconds showing, and Roberson’s lay-in gave CU its one-point lead at the 29.5 mark.
After rebounding Singler’s miss in the final 2 seconds, Roberson was fouled and went to the foul line to shoot one-and-one. He missed the first attempt and Oregon’s Arsalan Kazemi rebounded. But with less than a second to play, the Ducks were done.
“Our guys got stops when they had to,” Boyle said. “As painful and as disappointing as that Utah loss was for us, it might have done this team some good. We learned a couple of things: We know we have to play from the get-go, which I think we did . . . we competed. And secondly, knowing we can come back at the end. We came back and we won.”
The Buffs play next at Oregon State on Sunday (7 p.m. MST, Pac-12 Network).
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