Posts tagged Washington
CU Women’s B-ball Team Beats Oregon St. Beavers in Annual Pink Game
Feb 9th
Story by Caryn Maconi, CUBuffs.com
University of Colorado senior guard Chucky Jeffery earned her 1,500th career point and 26th career double-double Friday night in a 61-47 win over Oregon State.
It was a long-awaited return to the Coors Events Center for the Buffs, who wrapped up a four-game California swing with a split against UCLA and USC last weekend.
Jeffery was high scorer with 22 points
The CU women wore pink-accented uniforms in honor of the annual “Play 4 Kay” game to support breast cancer awareness.
“It was breast cancer week, and coach talked about attacking because that’s what the women with breast cancer have to do,” said junior guard Brittany Wilson, who grabbed a game-high five steals. “They have to attack, they have to fight. So we came down, we attacked, we came after loose balls, and forced them into those (24) turnovers.”
CU put the heat on the visitors early on, going on a 9-0 run before OSU scored its first basket of the game with 14:09 left in the half.
Wilson said that solid start was crucial for the Buffs, as they were battling a strong defensive team ranked sixth in the nation in blocks at 6.1 per game.
“We knew we had to come out and set a statement or they would keep coming at us,” Wilson said, “and you can’t give a team like that confidence.”
But the Beavers answered back, hitting four three-pointers in five minutes to make it 21-16 with six minutes remaining.
Thanks to a solid 78.6 percent on 14 opportunities from the free throw line, CU was able to hold onto that narrow lead and enter intermission still up five (28-23).
Photo from Missy’s Blog
Freshman Jen Reese had another big night–scoring 10
“Oregon State is a good team, they hustle and they scrap the entire game,” Jeffery said. “They weren’t going away, so we knew we had to go on a run and we had to get it up a little bit … that was huge for us to get this win.”
The second half began in a similar fashion as the first, as the Buffs went on a 7-0 run with five straight points by Jeffery and two made free throws by forward Arielle Roberson.
This time, though, the momentum stuck.
Colorado built its largest lead of the game, 15, with eight minutes left on the clock. From there, the Ducks would not pull closer than eight.
Shooting 7-of-10 free throws to end the game, the Buffs widened the gap back to 14 and closed with a 61-47 victory.
Jeffery led the Buffs in scoring with 22 points, adding 11 rebounds and a season-high three blocks. Sophomore forward Jen Reese also scored in double figures with 10 points, while Roberson added nine.
Guard Jamie Weisner was the biggest force on the court for the Beavers, as the freshman scored 22 total points and added seven rebounds; she was the only OSU player with more than seven points.
“Weisner’s tough,” said Colorado head coach Linda Lappe. “She plays so hard, she’s physical, she never quits. She’s a tough matchup for anybody in the league, so you’ve got to give her a lot of credit. She kept them in the game.”
With the win, CU improves to 17-5 overall, 6-5 in the Pac-12 Conference, while OSU falls to 9-14 and 3-8 in conference play.
Colorado returns to the Coors Events Center Sunday at 1:30 p.m. to take on the University of Oregon. After falling to Utah 67-47 Friday night, the Ducks are ranked last in the Pac-12 with a 1-10 record in the conference.
In fact, the Buffs have just one opponent remaining in the regular season, Washington, that is currently ranked higher in the conference standings.
Wilson, however, said her team won’t get comfortable just yet.
“Being in the Pac-12, you never know what team is going to come out,” Wilson said. “You have to play every team and respect them. This is a bottom-to-top hard conference to play, and if you give a team confidence, they’ll keep shooting and keep coming back at you. You don’t want to relax too much.”
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Strong Second Half Pushes CU Women Past USC Trojans, 65-49
Feb 3rd
It’s been a tough road trip for the No. 22 Colorado women’s basketball team, with three straight road losses against nationally ranked opponents in the past two weekends.
On Sunday, though, the CU women had one last chance to pull out a road win over the Southern California Trojans — and this time, they made it happen.
Arielle Roberson was high scorer with 15 points
With a solid second-half effort on both sides of the ball, Colorado pulled away from the Trojans for a 65-49 victory.
“I really liked our toughness in this game,” said Colorado head coach Linda Lappe. “We didn’t have any of that on Friday, and so it was nice to kind of get our identity back because that’s who were are when we’re playing our best.”
It was a success that came at a much-needed time, as the Buffs were in the midst of their longest losing streak of the season. After falling to top-10 teams Cal and Stanford last weekend, Colorado shot less than 30 percent from the field in a 62-46 loss to No. 18 UCLA on Friday.
“I think we knew we could definitely win this game and that we had to win this game,” said redshirt freshman forward Arielle Roberson, who led the Buffs in scoring with 16. “We just knew we had to do it in a fun way and not make it too stressful.”
The stress was certainly still there in the first half, as the Buffs and Trojans traded baskets and both teams struggled to gain a solid advantage. The lead changed eight times throughout the half, and neither team went up by more than five.
In the four minutes before intermission, however, USC found its momentum and went on a 13-3 run to reverse Colorado’s five-point lead to a five-point lead of its own by halftime (31-26).
The Buffs shot 36 percent from the field in the first half compared to USC’s 33, but the Trojans were efficient from the line with an free throw percentage of 89.
Colorado, though, took control at the start of the second half, going on an 8-0 run and forcing five turnovers in the process to build a three-point lead.
“I kind of had a feeling that (the Trojans) were going to get tired in the second half,” Lappe said. “And I think that’s what happened. I think we pushed the ball really well at them in the first half, we were physical with them in the first half, and I think that wore on them in the second half.”
With 12:17 remaining, Roberson knocked down an “and-1” play to put the Buffs up eight (41-33). Four minutes later, senior guard Chucky Jeffery scored on a steal and a fast break to give CU a 10-point lead.
In the final two minutes, Colorado went on an 8-1 run capped by a Roberson trey and a Jeffery free throw, erasing USC’s chance for a late-game comeback.
By the final buzzer, the Buffs had gone up 16 for a 65-49 victory.
Lappe said the improvement her team made from Friday night’s struggle to Sunday’s success was indicative of a high-level team.
“Everybody has a bad game, championship teams have bad games,” Lappe said. “But the real championship teams respond in a great fashion. They can let it go, they can take it for what it’s worth, and they can get a little mad and come back even stronger. I think that’s what’s going to happen to us after that Friday night game.”
Colorado demonstrated its depth in both scoring and rebounding on Sunday, with four players scoring in double figures and six players grabbing five or more boards.
In addition to Roberson’s game-high 16 points, Jeffery scored 15 and grabbed 10 rebounds in the process for her fifth double-double of the season. Junior guard Brittany Wilson added 12 points, while sophomore guard Lexy Kresl scored 11 and grabbed six rebounds.
Overall, the Buffs out-rebounded the Trojans 44-29, with 13 of those on the offensive end. Colorado ended the game shooting 40.4 percent from the field, holding USC to just 27.5 percent.
Junior forward Cassie Harberts led the Trojans in scoring with 14 total points, below her average of 18.7, while sophomore guard Ariya Crook added 10.
The win bumps Colorado’s record to 16-5 overall and 5-5 in the Pac-12 Conference, while USC falls to 8-13 and 5-5 in conference play. The Trojans remain unsuccessful against ranked teams (0-6) so far this season.
Though the Buffs may be only .500 in conference play, their start to the season has been far from smooth sailing. Half of Colorado’s matchups so far in conference play have been against nationally ranked opponents, and four of those have been against top-10 Cal and Stanford teams.
Only one of Colorado’s next eight opponents, Washington, currently has a better record than the Buffs in the Pac-12.
The CU women return to the Coors Events Center next week with matchups against Oregon State on Friday and Oregon on Sunday.
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CU Men Beat California-Berkeley Bears, Reach .500 In Pac-12
Jan 27th
By B.G. Brooks, CUBuffs.com Contributing Editor
BOULDER – It was a steep climb out and the trail only gets steeper, but the Colorado Buffaloes finally surfaced on Sunday at the Coors Events Center. Opening with another stellar defensive performance then staying above ground with a season-best effort from the free throw line, CU beat California 81-71 to even its Pac-12 Conference record at 4-4.
The Buffs began conference play 1-4, and in that nowhere-to-go-but-up context, reaching .500 “is really a positive sign,” said CU coach Tad Boyle. “But when we were 1-4, we wanted to get to 2-4 . . . we worried about the next game. But we’re not happy being 4-4; we have to win the next game and keep scratching and clawing and move our way up.”
Did we mention the trail only gets steeper?
Three consecutive road games await, beginning Saturday at Utah, followed by trips to first-place Oregon (Thursday, Feb. 7) and struggling Oregon State (Sunday, Feb. 10). The Buffs don’t return to the CEC until Feb. 14, when Arizona visits.
But with January waning, CU appears to be shaping up, even though at times Sunday it was hard to tell. Said Boyle: “The game was one of those deals where our shooting (59.6 percent) overcame a lot of other ills and some deficiencies we know we have to get better at.”
Topping his list were the 20 CU turnovers that led to 22 Cal points. There also were the Bears’ 53 second-half points – 33 of them attributable to guards Allen Crabbe and Justin Cobbs, who finally got untracked after nearly silent first halves and helped whittle an 18-point Buffs lead to eight in the final minute.
“We let them get closer than we should have,” Boyle said.
But in the final 60 seconds, Spencer Dinwiddie hit eight consecutive free throws to keep the Buffs afloat. For the afternoon, he hit 9-of-10, leading CU to its best foul-shooting performance of the season – 18-of-22 (81.8 percent).
Finishing with 16 points, Dinwiddie was one of four CU players in double figures. Askia Booker scored 20, Xavier Johnson added 18 and Andre Roberson 15. Johnson, a 6-6 freshman, also collected 12 rebounds for his first career double.
Roberson played only 2 first-half minutes due to foul problems and was limited to five rebounds after his 20-board performance against Stanford on Thursday. He led the nation in rebounding (11.9) entering the game.
But despite his first-half foul problems and those of Josh Scott, who missed the half’s last 7:53 after picking up his second foul, the Buffs prospered before intermission. That was mainly due to Johnson, who stepped up Roberson’s absence and got 10 of his points and eight of his rebounds before Askia Booker
the break.
“You could make a legitimate argument that he was the game’s offensive MVP,” Boyle said. “He was terrific . . . he’s really grown up.”
When Roberson went to the bench, Johnson said he “felt like I needed to help in rebounding . . . Andre is a big part (of that).”
Cal (11-8, 3-4) was led by Cobbs with 22 points – 16 in the second half, and Crabbe added 21 – 17 of those in the second half. But in combining for their 43 points, they needed almost that many shots between them – and Boyle said he could live with that: “They made some tough shots . . . if they’re going to get 43 points you want them to take 41 shots to get them.”
CU’s lock-down defense in the first half – Cal was limited to 20.6 percent from the field – and the Buffs’ overall strong board work – a 35-30 rebound advantage – created enough of a cushion before Cobbs and Crabbe began finding their groove in the final 20 minutes.
The Buffs led 34-18 at halftime and shot 50 percent from the field (13-for-26). But that percentage at times belied their offensive efficiency. After taking a nine-point lead (14-5) on consecutive treys by Booker, CU went nearly 7 minutes without scoring again.
That drought wasn’t fatal, though, because the Buffs defense nearly had the Bears clamped shut. Cal’s 18 first-half points were its lowest this season. But with Crabbe and Cobbs heating up, the Bears finished the game at 41.7 percent from the field – slightly above Boyle’s defensive goal.
“I thought we got tired,” he said. “’XJ’ was exhausted; he’s not used to playing 18 minutes in the first half. But they were tired, too . . . then when Cobbs and Crabbe started making shots, it’s amazing how that energizes you.”
Xavier Johnson
Booker (13) and Johnson (10) were CU’s only two players in double figures in the first half, while Cal had no one totaling more than six points. Crabbe (19.6 ppg) and Cobbs (14.3 ppg) were held to four and six points, respectively.
Roberson and Scott were back in the Buffs lineup to open the second half, but their return didn’t prevent the Bears from a 7-0 start to pull Cal to 34-25 in the first 1:34. Crabbe scored five of those seven points, prompting a timeout from Boyle.
On that possession, the Buffs got a layup from Johnson, then one of two free throws by Roberson to restore their double-digit lead (37-27). Three minutes later, Booker’s fourth trey of the game pushed CU ahead by 14 (46-32), and if Cal felt this one slipping away, that feeling was justified.
By the 9:05 mark, the Buffs had gone up 58-40 – matching their big lead of the afternoon – on a layup by Johnson. But with Crabbe hitting back-to-back treys, the Bears crept to within 65-54 with 4:06 to play.
Then it was Cobbs’ turn. Scoring nine consecutive points, he pulled the Bears to within nine (73-64) in the final 1:05. A trey by Tyrone Wallace got them to 75-67, but Dinwiddie was perfect on eight free throw attempts in the last minute to keep the Buffs safe.
Cal’s hot second-half shooting (60.5 percent) and closing to within eight points late, said Dinwiddie, were the result of “mental lapses. As much as you preach playing the possession, I think all of us as a team look at the scoreboard and say, ‘Look, we’re up 12, then we hit a three and we’re up 15.’
“When that starts to roll downhill a little bit and you’re only up eight, then you have to tighten the screws a little bit. Sometimes you can’t.”
Nonetheless, the win put CU in fifth place in the Pac-12, trailing Washington (4-3), the two Arizona schools (5-2), UCLA (6-2) and Oregon (7-0). Dinwiddie called the win “very important. To say you don’t look at the standings would be a lie. You don’t focus on them, but you look at them.
“We knew that people on top of us were playing each other . . . these (Stanford and Cal) are two very big wins. We’re going to look to go to Utah and just continue to win the next game.”
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