Posts tagged injury
Brooks: Buffs Rely On Tightened ‘D’ In Rout Of Utes
Feb 2nd
Colorado’s coach was more focused on what her team didn’t do than most anything Utah did – and fine-tuning her team was the right approach. Lappe’s Buffs clamped down defensively, made a few offensive tweaks and dispatched the Utes 61-45 at the Coors Events Center.
“It was good to get that win,” Lappe said. “I thought our players stepped up and did some good things on the defensive end and in rebounding.”
Winning for only the second time in their past eight games, the Buffs (13-8, 3-7) scored the afternoon’s first points and never trailed thereafter. CU led 33-16 at halftime, by as many as 20 points early in the second half, and allowed the Utes (10-11, 3-7) no closer than 13 for the rest of the game.
‘D’ was key for the Buffs, who had shot below 40 percent from the field in nine of their previous 11 games. While Sunday’s shooting percentage didn’t climb above 40 (35.8), CU held Utah to a frigid 25.9 percent – well below the 38.8 the Utes shot in Wednesday night’s 58-55 win.
In that game, CU’s Arielle Roberson and Jen Reese combined for only nine points. By halftime Sunday, Roberson-Reese had 16 between them – Roberson with 9, Reese with 7. Reese didn’t score in the second half, but Roberson doubled her first-half productivity and finished as the game’s high scorer (18).
Roberson said Lappe’s characterization of the Buffs now as “underdogs” made them “all come out and be more aggressive . . . we threw the first punch and were more aggressive.”
Defensively, said Roberson, the Buffs “boxed out a lot better, got a lot of defensive rebounds. We were better on our fouls, so I think (Lappe) was very pleased about that. We were scrappy, we were in passing lanes, and that set the tone for our offense.”
Brittany Wilson added 10 points for CU, seven of them in the second half. Freshmen Haley Smith contributed eight points and eight rebounds, matching Roberson’s board total. Lappe said Smith “played tremendous. I liked her demeanor . . . she was aggressive and that gave us a lot of energy and helped our overall intensity.”
Smith, a 6-0 wing from Sammamish, Wash., called Sunday’s win “a good bounce-back game for us . . . I think our mentality is changing.”
Sophomore Jamee Swan, who had scored 15 points and collected eight rebounds in Wednesday night’s loss, was held out of Sunday’s first for violating a team rule. She played 5 minutes, totaling one point and two rebounds.
Utah had one player in double figures – guard Danielle Rodriguez with 11. Forward Michelle Plouffe, the Utes’ high scorer (14) in Wednesday’s game, went 1-for-10 from the field Sunday and finished with 7 points. Cheyenne Wilson, who had 11 points against the Buffs in the earlier meeting, managed nine in the rematch.
Lappe credited Roberson, Reese and Rachel Hargis for their defensive work on Plouffe and for turning Sunday’s game in a guards duel.
“We match up well with her (but) you always have to know where (Plouffe) is,” Lappe said, noting that Hargis did “a great job” in spelling Roberson, which allowed Roberson to stay fresh on the offensive end.
The Buffs raced to a 33-16 halftime lead, finally ending a long 3-point drought and getting an impressive first-half finish from freshman Zoe Beard-Fails.
After missing the last 13 trey attempts – a span of 88:33 or two-plus games – CU got a 3-pointer from Reese to take a 5-2 lead that was never relinquished. Roberson closed the Buffs’ first-half scoring with a straightaway triple from the top of the key.
CU finished the half 2-of-6 from beyond the arc and got one of its top 3-point shooters – junior guard Lexy Kresl – back on the court. Kresl, out for the previous three games with a lower leg injury, played 4 first-half minutes but did not attempt a shot. But with 6:45 to play in the game, she knocked down a critical trey to send CU ahead 50-31. The Buffs finished 3-of-11 from behind the arc.
Lappe said Kresl wasn’t necessarily ahead of schedule in her comeback, noting that she will be brought along slowly and monitored for this week’s games. The Buffs visit the Pacific Northwest this week, playing at Oregon State on Friday (9 p.m. MT) and at Oregon on Sunday (3 p.m. MT).
Beard-Fails, who had scored six points in the previous nine Pac-12 games, matched that total in final 2:38 of Sunday’s first half. The 6-2 Beard-Fails, of Herndon, Va., followed a pair of free throws with two inside baskets as the Buffs stretched their advantage to 30-16.
Half a minute later, Roberson drained her 3-pointer, giving CU its 17-point lead at the break. The Buffs owned a healthy 27-12 rebounding edge after the first 20 minutes (51-35 for the game), but they committed 11 turnovers (17 for the game) which the Utes converted into 11 first-half points – the key number in keeping Utah as close as it was after one half. The plus-15 board advantage was the Buffs’ biggest in a half this season.
CU shot 42.9 percent in the opening half and went into the second half wanting that stat to hold up. It didn’t, but the Buffs compensated on the defensive end. They kept their intensity up to open the final 20 minutes, opened a pair of 20-point leads and kept the Utes playing catch up for the remainder of the game.
Utah coach Anthony Levrets applauded CU for adjusting after Wednesday’s game: “When they played big the first time, we had our two guards guarding Arielle on the perimeter, and then that allowed Plouffe to guard Reese.
“When they went back small today, it was a really good move by them because then our ‘five’ man has to either guard Reese or Roberson –and neither one of them is ever a ‘five.’ Playing on the perimeter was really hard for our big girls. It was a great adjustment by Colorado and I give a lot of credit to them.”
Contact: BG.Brooks@Colorado.EDU
Dinwiddie out for the season
Jan 13th
BOULDER – If the Colorado Buffaloes are to make a run at the Pac-12 Conference regular-season championship and earn a school-record third consecutive NCAA Tournament berth, it will have to be done without point guard Spencer Dinwiddie.
The 6-6 junior’s 2013-14 season is over, ended by an ACL injury that will require surgery when swelling subsides in his left knee. The injury was suffered in the first half of Sunday afternoon’s Pac-12 Conference loss at Washington, and the prognosis that the Buffs and their fans dreaded was delivered Monday afternoon when Dinwiddie underwent a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) exam.
“It’s a big blow for him . . . he’s worked so hard to put himself in the position he has and help lead this team to where we are today,” CU coach Tad Boyle said. “To have that all taken away from you in one basketball play is . . . it’s tough.”
It was equally tough, Boyle said, for Dinwiddie’s teammates: “They’re hurting. No. 1, we’ve got a close, tight-knit team. We’ve got great chemistry on this team. Guys care about each other. From that standpoint, the team’s hurting. There’s no question in my mind they’re a resilient group of guys, high-character guys. One guy goes down the opportunity for two or three more opens. We’re going to control what we can control, which is our attitude and effort every day in practice. That’s all you can do in life.”
After Sunday’s game, sophomore post Josh Scott called Dinwiddie “a big part, not the whole part, but he’s a big part of what we do. It’s just an adjustment and we’re going to have to figure out how to do that without him.”
Dinwiddie can expect a complete recovery, said Boyle, but he refrained from offering a timeline because the rehabilitation of ACL injuries differs from athlete to athlete. After receiving the news, said Boyle, Dinwiddie was “great . . . he’s controlling the things he can control – which are his attitude and effort. Get the swelling out of the knee and the surgery will happen when the doctors feel it’s appropriate. Then the rehab starts.”
Boyle credited Dinwiddie for his maturity, noting the player was “handling it very well. He’s going to be better because of it. He’s going to have a full and complete recovery. That’s the good news. It’s not a situation where he’s going to come back and be 80 percent. He’s going to be 100 percent when he comes back, whenever that is. I don’t know how long, I don’t know what the time frame is in terms of the recovery. It’s not going to be an easy rehab, but he’ll be fine.”
So, too, might be the Buffs – if they understand their top scorer and floor leader can’t be replaced by a single player. Boyle used the analogy of CU having to replace last season’s No. 2 nationally ranked rebounder when Andre Roberson declared himself eligible for the NBA Draft. The 2013-14 Buffs, said Boyle, are a better rebounding team than last season because that role has been taken on by committee.
“Everybody thought we’d have trouble rebounding because Andre’s gone, and guess what?” noted Boyle. “We’re a better rebounding team today than we were last year with the second-best rebounder in the country on our team. So everybody stepped up and everybody has to do that with Spencer out. Not one person is going to replace him . . . with everybody stepping up their game up a little bit, we can lessen the blow.”
Dinwiddie, of Woodland Hills, Calif., was CU’S leader in scoring (14.7 ppg), assists (64, 3.8 apg) and steals (26, 1.5 spg). He also led the Buffs in 3-pointers (26) and free throw shooting percentage (85.7).
In his 21/2 seasons, Dinwiddie already had worked his way into the top five in two CU career categories – No. 3 in free throw percentage (420-of-506, 83 percent) and No. 4 in 3-point field goal percentage (115-of-298, 38.6 percent). He had been recognized nationally, making the Top 50 watch lists for the Cousy, Naismith and Wooden Awards.
Boyle said the Buffs, who meet UCLA on Thursday at the Coors Events Center (6 p.m., Pac-12 Network), will focus on that game and not how they must adapt to Dinwiddie’s loss over the next two months. “What I told the team is that we don’t have to beat every team without Spencer,” Boyle said. “We have to figure out a way to beat UCLA without Spencer. That’s all we’ve got to do. Nothing changes in our preparation and in what we’re going to try to do. We’re down a man and everybody else has to step up.”
Beginning with the Bruins, the only Pac-12 opponent the Buffs have not defeated (0-2), Boyle said Dinwiddie’s injury is of little consequence to the rest of the league: “Nobody . . . really cares. They’re not going to take pity on the Buffaloes. I can promise you that. UCLA is going to come in there Thursday trying to get a road win. We’ve got to make sure we compete our tails off, scratch and claw, do everything we have to do to try to beat them.”
Figuring to share Dinwiddie’s minutes are freshman Jaron Hopkins, who already has logged more court time than any of Boyle’s first-year players, and sophomores Xavier Talton and Eli Stalzer. Said Boyle: “All three capable of taking care of the ball and getting us in our offense . . . they’re good team guys who shoot it, dribble it and pass it.
“We don’t have the star system here. Spencer was our leading scorer and leading assist guy, he led us in steals. There’s no question he was important to our team. I’m not trying to minimize this loss, but I just want our players to realize they’re here for a reason: they’re capable as well. When one guy goes down, the door opens for one, or in this case, maybe two or three more.”
Dinwiddie went down when his left knee buckled with 2:51 left in the first half at Washington’s Alaska Airlines Arena. No other player was around him. At the time, CU was leading 25-22, and Dinwiddie had scored seven points, with one assist.
At halftime, the Buffs still led 29-26, but with Andrew Andrews and C.J. Wilcox opening the second half with 3-pointers, the Huskies outscored the Buffs 6-1 in the first 2 minutes and took a 32-30 lead. CU never caught up and suffered its first Pac-12 loss of the season, 71-54.
Wilcox, guarded mostly by Dinwiddie in the first half and held to 10 points, erupted for 21 in the second half – including 13 in the first 6 minutes – and finished with a career-high 31.
In Monday’s national polls, the Buffs (14-3, 3-1) slipped from No. 15/17 to No. 21 in the Associated Press weekly rankings and No. 22 in the USA Today/Coaches Poll. CU has been ranked for six consecutive weeks in the AP poll – the longest since eight straight weeks in 1997 – and for five consecutive weeks by the coaches.
-COLORADO-
Andrew Green | Assistant Director Sports Information
With Dinwiddie injured, Huskies trounce Buffs
Jan 12th
By Alex Kaufman, CU Sports Information
SEATTLE – The Colorado Buffaloes suffered their first Pac-12 Conference defeat on Sunday afternoon – 71-54 to Washington – but they left for Boulder hoping they hadn’t absorbed a larger loss.
The No. 15 Buffs (14-3, 3-1) appeared to dictate the pace for much of the first half at Alaska Airlines Arena, leading by as many as seven points. But they struggled to find a rhythm after losing junior guard Spencer Dinwiddie to a knee injury with 2:51 left in the half.
Dinwiddie finished with 7 points and 1 assist in 15 minutes. Speaking with reporters after the game, CU coach Tad Boyle expressed concern over the injury to CU’s leading scorer.
“My gut says it’s not good, but we’ll see,” Boyle said. “If he’s out, he’s out. I feel so bad for the kid because he’s worked so hard, but we’ll have to wait and see.”
CU, still off to its best start since the 2005-06 season, had no answer for UW’s C.J. Wilcox. He finished with a game and career-high 31 points on 12-of-18 shooting and was deadly from downtown. The senior guard hit seven three-pointers, including five in the second half, to put the game out of reach.
“Every time he shoots it, you think it’s going in,” Boyle said. “He’s got such a good stroke a good release and he gets it off quickly. A guy who plays without the ball like that is pretty special.”
Colorado committed a season-high 20 turnovers and shot just 1-for-12 (.083) from beyond the arc. Josh Scott, who has now scored in double figures in eight consecutive games, paced the Buffs with 15 points.
“The second half, boy we shot ourselves in the foot. You turn the ball over 20 times against a good team and you’ve got six assists, it’s just a recipe for disaster,” Boyle said. “They’re a good team and they’ve got good players and they’re playing well right now.”
Wesley Gordon, who finished with a season-high 13 rebounds and 11 points, collected 11 boards in the first half en route to posting his first career double-double.
Washington stormed out in the second half with a pair of early three-pointers by Wilcox and Andrew Andrews to erase a four-point halftime deficit, and the Huskies never looked back. They shot a blistering 66.7 percent from the field in the second period (16-of-24), including 70 percent (7-10) from beyond the arc, and capitalized on a number of second-half miscues by the Buffs. CU coughed the ball up 11 times in the second half, which led to 21 Husky points.
Scott’s play was a bright spot for the Buffs in the second half. After a relatively quiet first half, the sophomore forward exploded for 13 points on 3-of-4 shooting and connected on all 7 attempts from the free throw line.
CU returns to the Coors Events Center next week to play UCLA and USC. The Buffaloes tip off against the Bruins Thursday at 6 p.m. before playing the Trojans at noon Saturday.