Posts tagged Contributing Editor
No. 20 CU women’s b-ball team starts slow, falls to No. 4 Cardinal
Jan 5th
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.
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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Buffs Crush Lobos, Await Date With Stanford
Dec 30th
Story by B.G. Brooks, Contributing Editor, CUBuffs.com
BOULDER – The University of Colorado women’s basketball team easily disposed of New Mexico 84-39 Saturday at the Coors Events Center, finishing non-conference play unbeaten and presenting coach Linda Lappe with her 100th career win.
With a date against No. 1 Stanford looming next week in their Pac-12 Conference opener, the No. 23 Buffaloes improved to 11-0 for the second consecutive season. Lappe, meanwhile, won for the 50th time as CU’s coach. She is 100-66 overall and 50-30 in her third season in Boulder.
Methodically taking care of business before the top-ranked Cardinal visits Friday (8 p.m.), the Buffs rolled to a 39-21 halftime lead and outscored the Lobos (8-5) 17-2 to open the second half.
CU sophomore guard Lexy Kresl tied a career-high with 20 points, hitting all five of her three-point attempts and tying a school record. Also in double figures for the Buffs were redshirt freshman Arielle Roberson (18), senior Chucky Jeffery (11) and sophomore Jen Reese (10).
Jeffery flirted with the third triple-double of her career. Despite sitting sat out the final 6 minutes, she finished with eight assists and eight rebounds to go with her 11 points.
In rolling to their 18-point halftime lead, the Buffs never trailed. They jumped ahead 3-0 on a three-pointer by Brittany Wilson and kept on cruising. Kresl led all first-half scorers, hitting all three of her three-point attempts on the way to 12 points and surpassing her previous high this season.
The Buffs shot 51.7 percent (15-for-29) from the field in the first half and hit five of their nine long-range attempts (55.6 percent). And they demons on defense, posting a season-high 11 steals, forcing 14 turnovers and limiting the Lobos to 34.8 percent shooting from the field (8-of-23).
The Buffs shot 50.8 percent for the game (32-of-63) and held the Lobos to 30.2 percent (16-of-53). CU outrebounded the visitors 42-31, owned a 40-16 advantage in the paint and converted 23 UNM turnovers into 28 points. The Buffs committed 13 turnovers, but the Lobos got only nine points from those errors.
CU – and Kresl – didn’t slow down to open the second half. With Kresl scoring eight points, the Buffs opened with a 17-2 run and quickly went up 56-23 – their largest lead of the afternoon to that point.
They kept on pushing, cruising toward their unbeaten start and their coach’s milestone win. With 6:44 to play, Roberson’s pair of free throws opened a 72-30 advantage.
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With their largest lead reaching 47 in the final minute, it was almost time for the Buffs to begin thinking about the Cardinal.
Buffs Hold Off No. 8 Cardinals At The Wire
Dec 15th
BOULDER – The buildup was big, but Colorado’s effort was bigger. The CU women’s basketball team took on – and took down – No. 8 Louisville 70-66 on Friday night at the Coors Events Center.
But it wasn’t easy for the Buffaloes to remain unbeaten (9-0).
CU led by as many as 13 (64-51) in the final 3 minutes before Louisville’s full-court pressure sparked a 10-0 run and allowed the Cardinals to close to 68-66 in the final half-minute.
But Jen Reese scored on a critical put-back after two missed free throws by Brittany Wilson with 11.1 seconds remaining to give the Buffs their first win against a Top Ten opponent since the 2002 CU team defeated No. 5 Stanford in the NCAA’s Sweet 16. Buffs coach Linda Lappe was a junior on that squad.
The Buffs had four players in double figures, topped by Chucky Jeffery’s 22. Arielle Roberson added 13 and Reese and Wilson had 11 each. CU center Rachel Hargis contributed seven points and a career-high seven blocks.
Louisville (9-2) was led by Antonita Slaughter’s 19. Cardinals’ leading scorer Shoni Schimmel was held to four.
The Buffs are off until Saturday, Dec. 22 when they host Utah Valley (1:30 p.m.). They close non-conference play a week later against New Mexico (2:30 p.m., Coors Events Center).
Jeffery scored the game’s first basket to give CU a 2-0 lead, but the Buffs trailed for almost the next 10 minutes. The good news: They never let the Cardinals get more than a five-point lead before they made their move to go ahead on a 11-0 run that put them up 23-16.
Roberson scored five points during that spurt, with Jeffery and Lexy Kresl each adding a three-pointer.
Louisville closed the gap to three (23-20) before CU surged again, this time riding Jeffery’s five points and an inside basket by Rachel Hargis on the way to a 7-2 run that gave the Buffs their biggest early lead – 30-22.
Lappe liberally subbed her posts and it paid off. Hargis contributed her best half of the season, hitting three of four field goals, blocking a season-high three shots, collecting two rebounds and getting one steal.
She was on the receiving end of a Jeffery pass in the half’s closing seconds, scoring a layup that put the Buffs up 36-30 at intermission. Jeffery led all first-half scorers with 13 points and was the only player on either team in double figures.
The Buffs held the Cardinals to 39.1 percent from the field (9-for-23) and shut out Schimmel, who entered the game with a team-best 12.1 points a game. Mostly, the job of defending her fell to Brittany Wilson – and “B-Wil” stayed as close as fuzz on a peach.
Louisville entered the game with a plus-9.1 rebounding edge, but was out-boarded 19-12 in the first 20 minutes. CU forced the visitors into 10 first-half turnovers, but matched that total.
The Buffs started the last half in an offensive stupor, not getting their first points until Roberson hit a pair of free throws (38-34) with 15:36 remaining. She followed those with a basket in the lane to push CU ahead again by six (40-34).
But Monique Reid answered with a pair of quick inside buckets to cut the Buffs’ advantage to two (40-38). The Cardinals then pulled to within 41-40 on a bucket by Shawnta Dyer. But the Buffs temporarily held them at bay.
At the 10-minute mark, CU was up 48-43, but a three-pointer by Slaughter trimmed the lead to 48-46. The Buffs held that two-point advantage until Brittany Wilson hit both ends of a one-and-one to up CU’s lead to 50-46 with 7:18 to play.
The Cardinals weren’t done – and the Buffs weren’t even close. A pair of Slaughter free throws pulled them to 50-48 before Jen Reese banked in a short jumper for a 52-48 CU lead with 5:22 showing.
That started a 10-0 Buffs run that produced their biggest lead of the night — 60-49 – with 3:33 remaining.
Here’s how it happened: Jeffery followed with an acrobatic layup to make it 54-48 with just under 5 minutes left, Reese got another basket, and Kresl and Brittany Wilson scored on fast-break lay-ins. The Buffs were up by 11 points, the Cardinals were staggering and the CEC was rocking.
But Louisville’s 10-0 run and a frantic finish were on the way.
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