Posts tagged MST
CU Women’s Balance Keys Lopsided Win Against Oregon Ducks
Feb 10th
Story by Caryn Maconi, CUBuffs.com
BOULDER – Four players scored in double figures Sunday afternoon to lead the No. 21/25 Colorado women’s basketball team to an 84-59 Pac-12 Conference romp past Oregon at the Coors Events Center.
The 84-point total ties the highest point total of the season for the Buffs, as they scored 84 against New Mexico in non-conference play. It is the fourth time the Buffs have scored more than 80 this season and the first so far in Pac-12 play.
With the win, Colorado improves to 18-5 overall and 7-5 in the Pac-12. CU’s seven conference wins to date are more than the team recorded in total last season (6-12). The Buffs had not won seven or more conference matchups in a season since finishing the 2004 Big 12 schedule at 11-5.
Junior guard Brittany Wilson led CU with 16 points, while senior guard Chucky Jeffery added 15 points and 15 rebounds. Jeffery’s totals marked her 27th career double-double and just the fourth time she has recorded 15 of each.
“To be able to score just as much as you rebound, that’s pretty amazing,” sophomore guard Lexy Kresl said of Jeffery’s performance. Kresl and junior center Rachel Hargis added 12 points and 10, respectively, while four other players scored at least six.
Hargis said her team prepared specifically to face Oregon’s zone defense, something the Buffs haven’t seen much of from opponents this season.
“Coach talked to us about moving the ball well, just keeping it moving and not holding the ball as much,” Hargis said. “Playing a zone you don’t really expect to score that much inside, but coach kept talking to us about attacking and cutting to open areas, and that’s what I focused on.”
Colorado started the first half slow, allowing Oregon to go on a 10-3 run in the first 3:15 and record three blocks in the first five minutes.
“B-Will” played her best game against a PAC- 12 team
“I didn’t think we were being very aggressive, we were letting them score however they wanted to score with not very many passes,” said CU head coach Linda Lappe. “We didn’t look like we were ready for what they were bringing, so we just needed to take a deep breath and get back out there.”
Once the Buffs had regrouped and gotten a chance to assess Oregon’s top scorers, they made the necessary adjustments on defense to stop the Ducks’ streak.
“We recognized who was going to be scoring and who was going to be shooting,” Kresl said. “We definitely tried to pick up the pressure on them more and play them a little bit closer.”
And with a more efficient defense came a ramped-up offense, as Jeffery and Wilson hit three consecutive three-pointers to regain a four-point lead with 13:40 left in the half.
Oregon didn’t give in easily and even briefly took the lead again with 7:45 on the clock. CU’s offense responded with force, though, outscoring Oregon 20-6 in the final 7:20 to enter intermission with a 43-31 advantage.
That momentum more than carried through halftime, as the Buffs went on an immediate 10-0 run to go up 20 (53-33). The Ducks were unable to recover, and with three minutes remaining a Hargis basket put the Buffs up 27 (80-53).
Colorado would maintain that energy until the final buzzer.
“It was a good game, we shared the ball a lot as a team, had 17 assists,” Wilson said. “We hit open shots, played great defense, so I think it was a team effort … I don’t think you could ask for anything more.”
Eleven Colorado players saw time on the court at some point Sunday, including freshman guard Kyleesha Weston and walk-on freshman guard Alexus Atchley. Atchley scored her first two career points in the last minute of the game.
“Anytime you can get players experience is important, especially young players,” Lappe said. “Especially when you play that tempo, you have to play ten players to stay fresh. We knew it was going to be a fast-paced game today, and everybody who came in just kept that pace going.”
CU shot 44.9 percent from the field, recording 17 assists and just 12 turnovers. Meanwhile, the Ducks were held to 38.6 percent from the field and recorded 21 turnovers.
Another highlight for the Colorado defense its steals, recording 16 compared to Oregon’s six. The Buffs have recorded 54 combined steals in the last four games, something Lappe credits to an increasing toughness on the defensive end.
“It is a lot of steals. It’s aggressiveness, it’s positioning, it’s understanding where you are supposed to be defensively and helping each other out,” Lappe said. “Defense is the bread and butter, and if we continue to do that we will be a really good team.”
The CU women hit the road once again next week, playing at Arizona on Friday (7 p.m., MST) and at Arizona State on Sunday (2 p.m., MST).
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CU Women’s lackluster performance nets fifth PAC-12 loss
Feb 2nd
LOS ANGELES – The No. 22 Colorado women’s basketball team had an opportunity on Friday night to gain a win over a ranked Pac-12 Conference opponent for the first time this season — but the Buffs couldn’t capitalize.
Shooting just 20 percent in the first half and 28.6 percent overall, CU fell to No. 18 UCLA 62-46 at Pauley Pavilion.
It was the Buffs’ third straight road game against a ranked opponent, having fallen to then-No. 7 California and then-No. 4 Stanford last weekend. Now 4-5 in the Pac-12 and 15-5 overall, CU has just one day to regroup before taking on Southern California Sunday at 10 a.m. MST.
Colorado was No. 1 in the conference in scoring defense going into Friday’s matchup, holding opponents to an average of 52.1 points per game — but UCLA’s forceful offense was too much for the Buffs to handle.
The Bruins (16-4, 7,-2) shot 55.5 percent from the field, improving from 44 percent in the first half to 70 in the second. Senior guard/forward Markel Walker led the Bruins with 17 points, and senior forward Alyssa Brewer added 10.
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Junior guard Brittany Wilson and senior guard Chucky Jeffery led CU in scoring with 12 and 11, respectively. The Buffs, however, didn’t show their usual scoring depth, with all non-starters combined scoring just nine points.
Rebounding, though, was perhaps Colorado’s biggest struggle. The Buffs were outrebounded 25-16 at the half and 44-29 on the night. Four Bruins recorded at least six rebounds, while only one CU player had more than four.
The Buffs did force 29 Bruin turnovers while only committing 17. CU head coach Linda Lappe said that while that may have been the only positive on the stat sheet for her team, the inability to capitalize off of those turnovers was costly for the Buffs.
“They gave us plenty of opportunities,” Lappe said. “Obviously they weren’t really ever threatened by us, and so perhaps they gave away some passes that they wouldn’t have if the game had been closer.”
Lappe said her team was capable of much more than it showed Friday night, especially on the defensive end.
“We didn’t have any mental toughness tonight,” Lappe said. “I mean, we were really a shell of ourselves. We didn’t rebound, we didn’t really play defense, we didn’t play together.”
CU started with a bang in the first half, going up six on a Lexy Kresl three with 16:32 remaining. When UCLA’s Walker responded with a 6-0 run of her own, though, the Buffs were unable to recover. In the 10 minutes following Walker’s run, Colorado scored just three points, allowing the Bruin’s lead to grow to 14 with five minutes left in the half.
By intermission, CU had recorded only 15 points to UCLA’s 29.
The Buffs found some energy with a 6-2 run at the start of the second half, even closing the Bruins’ lead to 11 with 14:43 remaining.
Ultimately, though, an inconsistent CU offense paired with UCLA’s dominance on the boards prevented the Buffs from a successful comeback.
With 6:41 on the clock, UCLA’s lead had grown to 19 — and while Colorado would not stop fighting, the shots simply didn’t fall.
“We were off the entire night,” Lappe said. “We couldn’t make layups. We weren’t necessarily turning the ball over a ton, but we just couldn’t get stops. We were on our heels the entire night. When we did get a stop, they’d get an offensive rebound put-back, or they’d get to the free throw line because we’d bail them out. There are so many things to point to that I can’t even name just one.”
The Buffs have just one day to regroup before taking on USC and Lappe doesn’t plan to waste that time.
“We’ve just got to get back to the drawing board, we’ve got to figure out how to get ready for the next game,” Lappe said. “Play like we can play, play with a sense of confidence, understand what we’re trying to do. We’ve got to play together. We just have to get back to doing the things that we were doing to win so many games that we seemed to not want to do tonight.”