Posts tagged Chucky Jeffery
CU women beat Oregon, gain a first round bye in PAC-12 tournament
Mar 2nd
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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No. 20 Buffs Earn Critical Win Over the Washington Huskies
Feb 24th
Story by B.G. Brooks, Contributing Editor, CUBuffs.com
BOULDER – The No. 20 Colorado Buffaloes outlasted Washington 68-61 on Sunday afternoon at the Coors Events Center and took a large step toward securing the No. 4 seed for next month’s Pac-12 Conference Tournament.
The Buffs, winning their seventh consecutive game, improved to 11-5 in the Pac-12 and moved into a fourth-place tie with the Huskies. But Sunday’s win gives CU the head-to-head tiebreaker, and the Buffs’ remaining schedule appears more favorable than the Huskies’ for securing the No. 4 seed.
CU (22-5) closes the regular season with games at Oregon (March 1) and Oregon State (March 3), while UW (19-8) finishes with home games against Pac-12 co-leaders Stanford and California. The conference tournament is March 7-10 in Seattle.
Freshman Arielle Roberson lead CU with 16 points
CU had four players in double figures against UW, topped by Arielle Roberson’s 16. Brittany Wilson added 13, with Chucky Jeffery and Jen Reese chipping in 11 each. Five of Reese’s points came in the final 2:55, with her critical pair of final field goals coming after the Huskies had closed to 59-57.
Jeffery, one of three seniors playing their final regular-season home game, added 13 rebounds for her ninth double-double of the season and 29th of her career. Jeffery left the game with 8.5 seconds to play, while seniors Meagan and Brenna Malcolm-Peck came onto the court about three seconds earlier.
Kristi Kingma led UW with 19 points. Aminah Williams added 12, Talia Walton 11 and Mercedes Wetmore 10. Guard Jazmine Davis, the Pac-12’s No. 2 scorer with a 19.7 average, was held to nine points on two of 13 shooting from the field.
CU never trailed by more than three points in the first half, and after Kingma hit a three-pointer to send the Huskies up 16-14, the Buffs launched a 16-3 run that produced a 30-19 advantage.
An acrobatic put-back by freshman Jamee Swan enabled CU to maintain that 11-point lead (36-25) at intermission. The Buffs got 11 first-half points from Brittany Wilson, who was the only player on either team in double figures.
Jen Reese’s two pull-up jumpers, like the one above, secured, in the final two minutes the winning margin for CU
UW opened the game hitting six of its first 11 shots, but made only three of its final 18 attempts to close the first half. CU hit 15 of its 32 first-half field goal attempts (47 percent) and outrebounded the visitors 25-15.
The Huskies scored the first six points of the second half, pulling to 36-31. The Buffs, meanwhile, had Jeffery leave the game with what appeared to be a left ankle injury at the 19:12 mark. But she was back about four minutes later, and her return might have given CU an emotional lift.
After UW crept to within five points, CU went on an 8-1 run and shot ahead 44-32 with 12:41 to play. Roberson scored six of the Buffs’ points during that surge.
But that 12-point CU lead disappeared quickly.
UW, the Pac-12 leader with 8.5 treys a game, put together an 11-0 run that featured treys by Wetmore and Kingma and another three free throws by Kingma. That pulled the Huskies to within one twice in the final 9:58, but an 8-0 CU that included four points by Jeffery opened a nine-point Buffs lead (56-47).
UW wouldn’t roll. The Huskies outscored the Buffs 8-2 over the next three minutes, closing to 58-55 with 3:38 to play, then pulling to 59-57.
But Reese got her pair of monstrous mid-range jumpers to give CU breathing room at 63-57, and the Buffs hit five of six free throws in the final 48.5 to tuck away the win.
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No. 20 CU Women Persevere, Beat Persistent WSU
Feb 23rd
Story by B.G. Brooks, Contributing Editor, CUBuffs.com
BOULDER – Early style points were scarce for a Top 25 team, but the No. 20 Colorado Buffaloes stayed patient, regained their poise late and finally disposed of Washington State 59-45 on Friday night at the Coors Events Center.
Winning its sixth consecutive game, CU matched last season’s win total and set up a crucial home finale on Sunday. The Buffs (21-5) face Washington, one of two teams just ahead of them in the Pac-12 Conference standings, at 2 p.m. for Senior Day.
The Buffs are 10-5 in the Pac-12, with their 10 wins marking their first double-digit season in league play since 2004. The Huskies dropped to 11-4 after losing at Utah on Friday night.
Sunday’s game marks the final regular-season home appearance for CU seniors Chucky Jeffery, Meagan Malcolm-Peck and Brenna Malcolm-Peck, whose career has been interrupted by various injuries.
Three CU players – Arielle Roberson (17) and Jeffery and Jen Reese (10 each) – finished in double figures. Roberson also collected 13 rebounds, accounting for her first career double-double.
Roberson’s late game scores were key in gaining the win
Starting sophomore guard Lexy Kresl watched from the CU bench, still recovering from a shoulder injury suffered in last weekend’s win at Arizona State.
WSU (10-16, 6-9) was led by Lia Galdeira with 12 and Mariah Cooks with 10.
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Going ahead 21-8 on a conventional three-point play by Roberson, the Buffs appeared to have a comfortable first-half lead. Then they went frigid and forgetful, lapsing on the offensive and defensive ends and allowing the Cougars back into the game.
Over the next four minutes, WSU went on a 10-1 run and cut CU’s 13-point lead to four (22-18). The Buffs had opened by hitting six of their first 12 shots, but they closed the half hitting just three of their last 20 attempts – and their final field goal of the half was by Roberson just seven seconds before the buzzer.
Still, despite shooting 28.1 percent from the field, committing 11 turnovers (19 for the game) and getting just two points from Jeffery, CU led 26-19 at intermission. That was mainly because WSU had 14 turnovers (25 total) and was limited to 21.9 percent first-half shooting.
But Lappe can be forgiven if she was leaning toward destroying the first-half tape.
The Buffs matched their largest lead of the game – 13 points at 40-27 – on a Jeffery basket with 13:30 remaining. But the Cougars crept back to within six (48-42) in the final six minutes.
A Jeffery jumper with 4:48 to play pushed CU ahead 50-42, and a Roberson trey from the top of the key restored the Buffs’ double-digit lead (53-42) with 3:30 remaining. When Roberson followed with a basket in the paint, CU’s lead went to 15, and with two minutes to play WSU was finished.
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