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Story by Caryn Maconi, CUBuffs.com

EUGENE, Ore. – It wasn’t pretty but it was a win. The  Buffs women’s basketball team earned its eighth straight win and 23rd of the season with a 60-49 victory over the Oregon Ducks here Friday night. It wasn’t pretty but it was deja vu coach Linda Lappe; the last time CU won 23 games she was a senior playing fror legendary coach Ceal Barry and CU made it to the Sweat 16.

With the win, the Buffs clinched a first-round bye for the Pac-12 Women’s Basketball Tournament next weekend in Seattle. CU plays at 3:30 p.m. MST on Friday at Key Arena, meeting the winner of Thursday’s game matching the No. 5 and No. 12 seeds.

Arielle Roberson was high scorer with 16 points

“I think (the bye) gives us more confidence going in,” said redshirt freshman forward Arielle Roberson, who led CU in scoring Friday night with 16 points. “We’ll be rested more than other players will, and we’ll have more time to prepare, so it’s definitely a great thing.”

Colorado head coach Linda Lappe said the bye was well-earned, but that she’s setting her sights on more than just that accomplishment.

“We’ve worked really hard for that bye, and eight in a row is something you don’t see all the time,” Lappe said. “It hasn’t always been pretty, but we’ve come together when we’ve needed to, we’ve been tough when we’ve needed to be tough . . . we have bigger goals than just the four-seed.”

The 2012-12 Buffs may be headed for a similar destiny at 23-5 overall and 12-5 in the Pac-12. First, though, they’re taking care of business in the final weekend of the regular season, starting with Friday’s rout in Eugene.

It was a messy win for CU, but a win nonetheless. The Buffs forced 21 Oregon turnovers and committed seven, but shot just 34.8 percent from the field compared to the Ducks’ 37.5.

“We never really got into a flow offensively,” Lappe said. “We couldn’t convert those turnovers into baskets very often, which hurt us, and we just didn’t get the shot that we wanted to . . . when you shoot 34 percent that’s not very good. So to be able to win, that’s good.”

CU struggled offensively without guard Lexy Kresl, a force from beyond the arc. The sophomore is out with a separated right shoulder suffered in a Feb. 17 win over Arizona State.

Lappe said Kresl’s absence made the Oregon zone defense harder to handle.

“We did miss Lexy in this game,” Lappe said. “You want her against the University of Oregon, they play 40 minutes of 2-3 zone. Lexy obviously does a really nice job of for one, passing, and extending the defense out there. It was really, really hard not to put her in tonight.”

While Colorado’s defense came to play from the start, its offense occasionally struggled to capitalize off of Oregon turnovers. However, it did convert the Ducks’ 21 errors into 20 points. Though the Buffs committed just five turnovers compared to the Ducks’ 13 in the first half, CU only had a three-point advantage at intermission.

The game remained tight in the second half until the 12:25 mark, when freshman guard Kyleesha Weston lit the spark that would ignite CU’s offense.

Weston hit a three-pointer, then grabbed a steal on the next possession. Roberson then continued the run with another three at 12:07 to put the Buffs up 36-29.

“It looked a little dead out there,” Weston said. “I was told that I needed to pick up the energy. That’s when I’m at my best, when I have a lot of energy, so I felt like I could spark the team.”

Lappe said Weston’s determination off the bench was a sign of maturity for such a young player.

“That stretch there was huge, and even for (Kyleesha) to come in and knock down that three when we hadn’t hit that many, that shows a lot of guts and resiliency as a freshman,” Lappe said. “For her to step up and knock down shots when nobody else was shows a lot of toughness. That fired everyone else up.”

The Ducks would not pull closer than five for the remainder of the game, as the Buffs built their largest lead, 16, on a Jasmine Sborov three with 4:05 remaining.

In addition to her game-high 16 points, Roberson had four rebounds, a block and a steal. Senior guard Chucky Jeffery recorded 12 points and 10 rebounds, earning her 30th career double-double.

Colorado also held an opponent to under 50 points for the 12th time in 28 games; the Buffs are undefeated in all 12 of those games.

CU finishes its final regular-season weekend with a matchup Sunday at Oregon State (1 p.m., MST).

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