No. 20 CU women’s b-ball team starts slow, falls to No. 4 Cardinal

Story by B.G. Brooks, Contributing Editor, CUBuffs.com

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.

Jasmine Sborov played a good defensive game for Colorado Friday night

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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