Posts tagged Buffaloes
Buffs Storm Past Arizona 55-42
Feb 16th
Story by Caryn Maconi, CUBuffs.com
TUCSON, Ariz. – So far this season, the No. 21 Colorado women’s basketball team hasn’t been fazed by road competition. On Friday night at the McKale Center, the Buffaloes showed they can create their own energy wherever they go.
Led by sophomore forward Jen Reese’s 15 points, CU rolled to its fourth consecutive win, 55-42, over the Arizona Wildcats. It was the second meeting this season for the Pac-12 Conference opponents, as the Buffs also defeated the Wildcats 79-36 in Boulder in January.
CU improves to 19-5 overall and 8-5 in the conference. Arizona’s loss, meanwhile, was its eighth straight, dropping the Wildcats to 11-13, 3-10.
The Buffs outrebounded their opponents 40-35, grabbing 16 offensive rebounds compared to the Wildcats’ 9. Redshirt freshman forward Arielle Roberson’s picked up a game-high seven rebounds, while Reese and freshman forward Jamee Swan added six each.
In the game’s first five minutes, Arizona forced five turnovers but failed to capitalize offensively, allowing CU to stay even through the 12:42 mark (11-11). CU sophomore guard Jasmine Sborov then put together an “and-1” play which sparked a 14-0 Colorado run to put the Buffs up 25-13.
“We knew we had to take a run, and we just had to keep going,” Reese said. “Our defense goes into our offense, and after a while we got great shots, everyone was finding gaps in either zone or man – so we just kept knocking those down and playing defense.”
Sophomore guard Lexy Kresl’s trey with 4:33 remaining gave CU its largest lead of the first half at 30-15, but the Wildcats responded with an 8-0 run of their own to end the half down only seven (30-23).
Buffs coach Linda Lappe said that with a comfortable lead, her team lost some of its sense of urgency and started to allow the Wildcats uncontested shots.
“You want to make sure that when you have an opponent down, you keep a foot on the gas pedal and keep going,” Lappe said. “I thought there were times when we let up a little bit.”
But as the Buffs turned up the heat out of the locker room, the Wildcats went cold. CU went on a 10-0 run to start the second half, holding Arizona scoreless for more than six minutes.
Arizona senior guard Davellyn Whyte, the team’s leading scorer, put up her first three points of the game and Arizona’s first of the half at the 13:36 mark. While Whyte would score another three to bring the Wildcats to within nine, the gap would never get closer than that.
Colorado ended the game shooting just 37.3 percent from the field, but held Arizona to 32.6 percent. CU also scored 14 points off of turnovers compared to AU’s nine and got 30 points in the paint compared to AU’s 14.
Lappe said her team was prepared specifically to guard Whyte, a player who averages 16.4 points per game to rank fifth in the Pac-12.
“I thought it was a team defensive effort,” Lappe said. “We rotated a lot of different players on her, and I thought it was great to have somebody fresh on her. We know what she can do offensively.”
Junior guard Brittany Wilson opened guarding the standout, but senior guard Chucky Jeffery and junior center Rachel Hargis took turns on her as well.
“Whyte’s a great player,” Reese said. “Stopping her was big – I mean, they had other players kind of stepped up, but our defense won the game for us.”
CU committed 20 turnovers but also had 11 steals, marking the team’s fifth straight game with 10 or more steals.
Still, Lappe said that despite the strong defense, that 20-turnover total was inexcusable for a Top 25 team.
“I told our team we should never have 20 turnovers in February, and that has to become a part of our program’s culture,” Lappe said. “It hasn’t been in the past, we’ve been OK with it in the past, but this year needs to be different.”
CU seeks its fourth conference road win on Sunday at Arizona State (2 p.m. MST).
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CU Women’s Comeback Falls Short Against No. 6 Cardinal
Jan 28th
STANFORD, Calif. – The Colorado women’s basketball team encountered another in-game lapse on Sunday against Stanford, rallied from it, but couldn’t finish its comeback and fell 69-56 to the No. 6 Cardinal at Maples Pavilion.
The No. 20 Buffaloes held their own for most of the first half, staying within single digits of the Cardinal by halftime (35-26). That gap could’ve been smaller, however, had the Buffs not given up 10 first-half turnovers and allowed the Cardinal to go on a 9-3 run to cap the first half.
Colorado didn’t regain its momentum until midway through the second half, and with 14:25 remaining, Stanford had already built a 21-point lead from which CU could not recover. That slow second-half start, CU head coach Linda Lappe said, was reminiscent of another scoring drought the Buffs had the last time they played Stanford – a 57-40 loss on Jan 4.
“In both games that we’ve played these guys, we’ve had a stretch where we have not played very well, and we’ve just given them way too many opportunities,” Lappe said. “We weren’t making them work to get that 21-point lead, and that’s probably the most disappointing thing, in both games. Last time it was at the beginning of the game, this time it was right before half into the second half.”
With the loss, the Buffaloes drop to 15-4 overall and 4-4 in Pac-12 Conference play, while Stanford improves to 18-2 and 7-1 in the Pac-12.
The two teams were ranked No. 1 and 2 in the conference in scoring defense entering the game, with the Buffs holding opponents to 52.7 points per game and the Cardinal 52.9. On Sunday, though, Stanford’s defense prevailed, forcing 18 Colorado turnovers.
Despite its ineffective opening to the second half, CU had nearly 15 minutes to play and wasn’t about to give up. The Buffs brought themselves back into contention with a 12-0 run, trimming the score to 51-42 with 10:45 remaining. The Cardinal’s lead eventually shrunk to just seven (53-46) as Brittany Wilson hit a three with eight minutes on the clock.
But every time Colorado brought the energy, Stanford responded. With 6:10 remaining, Stanford made what turned out to be a five-point play: forward Joslyn Tinkle hit a three-pointer, and missed her “and-1” shot, which forward Chiney Ogwumike rebounded for a layup.
It was the spark the Cardinal needed to bring the game home.
“We didn’t close out with our high hands, we run into the shooter and then we don’t box out on the free throw, and that was a huge deal at that point in the game,” Lappe said. “It gave them a lot of momentum.”
Though the Buffs kept fighting, they would never get closer than 10 points.
Lappe said that while Stanford brought a high level of play to the game, many of the Buffs’ mistakes were of their own creation.
“We didn’t do nearly enough that it was going to take to win tonight,” Lappe said, “and I felt like we controlled a lot of that.”
But junior guard Ashley Wilson, who scored five of her seven points during CU’s second-half comeback attempt, said her team had to feel that a win was still possible until the final buzzer.
“It’s just never giving up. No matter what position we’re in, we have to fight, fight ’till when the horn goes off,” Wilson said. “We’ve just got to be ready to bounce back. That’s all we can do every single time is bounce back and not let it defeat us.”
Sophomore forward Jamee Swan led Colorado in scoring with 14 points off the bench, while senior guard Chucky Jeffery added 13. Jeffery and redshirt freshman forward Arielle Roberson grabbed a team-high seven boards each, helping CU to out-rebound the Cardinal 39-33.
Stanford’s Ogwumike led all scorers with 20, adding 12 rebounds to earn her 15th double-double of the season. Three other Stanford players – Tinkle, guard Toni Kokenis and guard Amber Orrange – also scored in double figures, as the Cardinal hit 49.1 percent from the field compared to CU’s 36.1 percent.
Colorado has now played both of the Pac-12’s top-10 teams, Cal and Stanford, twice each, with those four games being the Buffs’ only conference losses.
Ashley Wilson said there were definite benefits to taking on such tough competition early in the season.
“We know we can play with the top teams in the country, we’ve proven that multiple times,” Wilson said. “So now we just have to take this confidence, take the positives out of this game and just let it keep rolling into the next few games.”
CU plays the third of four straight away games on Friday night against UCLA. The matchup is set for 9 p.m. MST and will air on the Pac-12 Network.
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Colorado Women’s Basketball Team Moves Up Two Spots To No. 21 In AP Poll
Jan 14th
Colorado, 13-2 overall and 2-2 in the Pac-12 Conference, received 232 votes, its highest vote total of the season. The Buffaloes have resided in the AP poll for the last five weeks, reaching as high as No. 20 on Dec. 31. CU’s five week run in the AP poll is its longest since appearing in all 19 polls of the 2003-04 season.
The Buffaloes have a long history of rankings in the AP poll, dating back to the 1980-81 season. This week’s ranking marks the 163rd time Colorado has appeared in the AP poll, trailing only Stanford, USC and UCLA among Pac-12 schools.
The USA Today Sports Coaches poll is scheduled to be released on Tuesday. Colorado spent one week at No. 25 in that poll (Jan. 1) and was the second team in the “receiving votes” category last week.
Colorado will continue Pac-12 play by hosting the Arizona schools this week. Arizona State visits Boulder for a 7 p.m. game on Friday, Jan. 18, while the Buffaloes host Arizona on Sunday, Jan. 20, at 2 p.m. at the Coors Events Center.
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