CU women’s b-ball 25 – 5, facing #4 Stanford tonight in Pac-12 semifinals
Mar 9th
Freshman Jamie Swan’s late game baskets iced the win
Story by B.G. Brooks, CUBuffs.com
Overcoming a first half of near and sometimes bad misses, fourth-seeded CU finally took control in the final 20 minutes and ousted fifth-seeded Washington 70-59 at KeyArena.
The No. 18 Buffs (25-5) earned a Saturday night date with top-seeded Stanford (29-2) in the Pac-12 semifinals. The No. 4-ranked Cardinal, which defeated the Buffs twice during regular-season play, advanced by disposing of Washington State 79-60 in Friday night’s first game.
No. 2 seed California (28-2) and No. 3 seed UCLA (24-6) play in Saturday night’s first semifinal game. The CU-Stanford tip is scheduled for 9:30 p.m. MST (Pac-12 Network).
“There’s only one way to look at a matchup with Stanford, and that’s as an opportunity,” said CU coach Linda Lappe. “We’re going to look at it that way.”
Stanford’s two wins against CU were by 17 points (57-40) in Boulder on the opening weekend of Pac-12 play, then by three points (59-56) at Stanford on January’s last weekend. The Buffs believed they had improved at least that much from the first to the second meeting, and they believe they’re even better now.
They’ll probably need a better start than they had Friday night, when they were forced to overcome a first half that saw them miss 13 of their first 16 field goal attempts and go to their locker room to ponder their 28.9 percent (13-for-45) shooting.
“We knew we had to settle down, quit missing easy shots and quit fouling,” said senior guard Chucky Jeffery, who scored 12 of her game-high 19 points in the second half. “Now we know how the floor feels, the jitters are gone and the first (game) is out of the way. Now it’s about quick memory loss and going on to the next one – and it’s a big one. We want to come out and play better Saturday.”
Lappe used 11 players against UW (20-11) and not only did all of them score, all but one of them collected at least two rebounds and all but two contributed at least one assist. In addition to her 19 points, Jeffery also had a game-best four assists, while freshman forward Jamee Swan scored a career-high 15 points and hauled in 10 of CU’s 58 rebounds – UW had 36 – in her 19 minutes of court time.
“I feel like I played the best I ever played,” said Swan, who also blocked three shots. “It was really nice to be out there and not be afraid and have my teammates behind me.”
All of them were. CU’s bench outscored UW’s 33-18. The Buffs had 25 offensive rebounds to the Huskies’ 13, outscored them 40-18 in the paint and won the second-chance point duel 20-9.
“I like how we crashed the offensive glass,” Lappe said. “We needed to get a lot of extra shots in this game and we did. We showed a lot of resolve in chasing down loose balls to get us extra shots.”
Lappe applauded Swan and freshman guard Kyleesha Weston, who contributed two points and six rebounds in 21 minutes. “I’m really proud of our players,” Lappe said. “I thought we stepped up big at certain times . . . it seemed like whoever we brought into the game, we never missed a beat. That allowed us to get some rest so we could make a push at the end.”
In their 68-61 win over the Huskies last month in Boulder, the Buffs limited the Pac-12’s No. 2 scorer, Jazmine Davis, to nine points. Friday night, Davis got 17 – two below her average. She hit two of UW’s seven three-pointers, which were two more than CU allowed in Boulder and two above Friday night’s goal. U-Dub leads the conference in three-pointers made (8.2 a game). The Huskies’ final two treys Friday night came in the last two minutes when they were trying to cut into a 10-point Buffs lead.
UW got as close as four (63-59) before Jeffery scored five consecutive points – a jumper and three of four free throws – and Swan sank two free throws with 13 seconds left to account for a 7-0 run to close out the game.
The Buffs were up 29-26 at the half, but it took them almost 18 minutes to get their first lead. Blame that on shooting that was somewhere south of frigid. UW led by as many as six points (14-8) before the Buffs finally began finding their range – if they ever did.
Lappe said her team was “really excited to play. I think anytime that’s the case you miss some easy shots . . . but I like how we stayed with it.”
After a Jeffery three-pointer – her team’s only trey of the first half – tied the score at 23-23, she hit a pull-up jumper from the free throw line following a UW turnover to give CU its first lead, 25-23, with 2:41 before intermission.
The final 20 minutes would belong to whoever wanted them, and based on the first 21/2 it appeared that was CU. After scoring the first eight points the Buffs surged to a 37-26 lead and were threatening to rip this one open.
It didn’t happen. Talia Walton’s trey started an 8-0 UW run and Davis’ traditional three-point finished it, pulling the Huskies back to within three (37-34) with 16:09 remaining.
CU went back ahead by as many as seven points on an Ashley Wilson layup and maintained at least a four-point lead until a pair of free throws by Kristi Kingma pulled UW to 45-43 with 10:29 to play.
The Huskies could get no closer. Pulling ahead twice by 10 on a pair of layups by Swan in the final two minutes, the Buffs looked like they could begin making semifinal plans for Saturday.
But three-pointers by Heather Corral and Walton, who finished with 13, closed UW’s deficit to 63-59 with less than a minute left. Jeffery answered with a layup and three of four free throws, and when Swan sank a pair with 13 seconds remaining, those semifinal plans to face Stanford were complete.
“We’ll have to make sure we’re ready and playing really well together,” Lappe said. “They’re the giants of the Pac-12 and we’ve got a shot at them.”
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CU in distant 2nd at NCAA Championship in Vermont
Mar 8th
The CU ski has little chance of overtaking the lead with only two events
remaining.
Defending champion Vermont has now led after all three days, and owns a 54-point edge over the Buffaloes. After Friday’s always-risky slalom races, the Catamounts ended the day with 564 points, followed by Colorado (510), Denver (484) and Utah (481). Those four schools remain in the hunt for the title, as fifth place New Mexico (449) and sixth place Dartmouth (405) are likely too far back of UVM to make up that much ground.
Vermont has recent history on its side, as the leader at the midway point has won six straight and 10 of the last 12 times, and schools leading after three days (six events) have won 16 of the last 18. Two of the last three champions, Denver (2010) and Colorado (2011) both led wire-to-wire.
UVM’s 54-point lead is the smallest heading into the final two events since 2009, when it led DU by two points, but the Pioneers overhauled them and won by 56.5 points. The only other school to rally on the final day in the last 20 years was Vermont in 1994, as the Catamounts started in third place and down by 49 points before rallying for a 21-point win.
“It was a tough day, as tough as slalom can be,” CU head coach Richard Rokos said. “There are two approaches, go out and give everything like Utah and Denver did, or ski conservatively and hope that everybody else will have bad luck or ski the same way. UVM knows this place well and they took advantage. With us being just behind them, our kids finished six runs diligently, it’s part of the deal. Unfortunately we didn’t catch enough points to catch up or even maintain with Vermont, so they’re still ahead of us.”
Denver won the women’s slalom with 101 points, followed by Dartmouth (90), Utah (86), Vermont (84), New Mexico (78), New Hampshire (67) and then Colorado (seventh, 59). In the men’s slalom, Middlebury won the day with 103, ahead of New Hampshire (95), New Mexico and Vermont (91) and the Buffs (82).
“I have a fundamental problem with the format, we used to throw out three results and use 21 of 24 scores, and that would allow kids to risk a little more in slalom,” he continued. “Now every single point goes in your pocket and you can’t hike and everything counts. And before that, you skied four and counted three. You could survive a crash, a hike, a bad run, etc., and the deeper teams had a little comfort zone.”
Denver freshman Kristine Haugen made it a sweep here, as she claimed the women’s slalom Friday to add to her win in the giant slalom on Wednesday; she is the first to win both since CU’s Lucie Zikova in 2008, and the fifth to do it since 1983 when the NCAA first sponsored women in the sport.
All of CU’s women are freshmen as well, with Jessica Honkonen posting CU’s best finish, her 1:40.78 time placing her 16th, but well behind Haugen’s time of 1:37.97. Brooke Wales finished 18th (1:41.16) and Thea Grosvold 27th (1:42.20). It marked just the second time in the last 14 national slaloms that CU didn’t have at least one finisher in the top 10, the other year coming in 2009.
“We were on the defensive today, we came in without a huge deficit to UVM, we wanted to maintain that difference, but I think we probably held back a little bit too much today,” Wales said. “Hopefully (CU) just finishing with decent runs will pay off and the ‘Nordies’ will get it done. Some other teams hurt themselves by not finishing some racers. But know that tomorrow we will be the No. 1 fans out there tomorrow getting them through the finish line.”
“I told them to make sure to finish, the girls maybe took it a little too much to heart,” Rokos pondered. “They skied fast and clean, it’s hard to compromise. On one hand, you ask them to ski fast, on the other if they don’t finish, it hurts the team. It’s a very hard compromise, and contradictory to what ski racers do.”
The men were led by freshman Kasper Hietanen, who earned second-team All-America honors in tying for eighth place with a 1:40.28 time; New Mexico’s Joonas Rasanen won the top spot on the podium with a two-run clocking of 1:38.96.
“I had a little trouble on the second run, but I was able to make it in the top 10, the top eight, so it was good,” Hietanen said. “It was a little different than the first run, the sun came up, it was softer and slicker, I had a great run until a mistake right before the last flat. That probably cost me a few spots, but all in all it was a decent run. I was going for it, but also I was careful to save points. Even taking it carefully, I had a little mistake, but I kept it in there.”
“Kasper’s had one mistake that cost him probably being in third or even second, but it was still to finish eighth, especially in your first NCAA slalom,” Rokos said. “If you look at the podium, there were no favorites, they were all hiking.”
Freshman Henrik Gunnarsson finished 13th (1:40.76), while junior Andreas Haug tied for 16th (1:41.62).
The mass start freestyle races will finish off the NCAA meet on Saturday, with the women’s 15-kilometer at 8:00 a.m. MST, and the men’s 20k race following at 10:00 a.m.
“The Nordic races are a little more predictable, which is obvious after today here,” Rokos said. “We’ll see how we do tomorrow, we’re not out of it but need to have a great day. We’ll do everything to get every kid through the finish line in the fastest possible way, and we’ll be there cheering them on as much as we possibly can.”
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CU Buffs Down Oregon Ducks
Mar 8th
By B.G. Brooks, CUBuffs.com Contributing Editor
BOULDER -After thee, one-point victories over the Ducks. Colorado put the hurt on Oregon 76-53.
It was an outrageous, out-of-sight blowout Thursday night at the sold-out (11,013) Coors Events Center, and at night’s end CU savored a sweep of Oregon and its fourth win in six games this season against a Top 25 opponent.
If the Buffs needed another highlight on their NCAA Tournament resume, this was it. And if coach Tad Boyle needed another milestone win in his three-year CU career, he can put a check by this one.
“I told the team in the locker room I have been coaching division one basketball for 18 years now and I am not sure I have been more proud of a group of guys with what they did and how they stepped up,” Boyle said. “Our starters, bench, whoever we put in there played their hearts out and we beat a good solid basketball team.
Unfortunately, we cannot enjoy it as much as we would like to, we have to get ready for Saturday, and this was a gutty effort with a great basketball team.”
The Buffs, now 9-3 in their last 12 games, close the regular season on Sunday against Oregon State (2:30 p.m., CEC).
In the absence of the 6-7 Roberson, who is day-to-day with a viral illness, the Buffs took up the slack by committee. Their headliner was freshman Xavier Johnson, who responded with a career-high 22 points. He was perfect from the field, hitting seven-of-seven, including three-of-three from beyond the arc, and was five-of-six from the free throw line.
Boyle called Johnson’s performance “terrific . . . his performance was big time, when you make shots it covers up a lot of things and we were not able to do that at Cal but we were able to do it tonight. I was really proud of him stepping up because he is a guy that with Andre being out we needed to count on.”
Sophomore guards Spencer Dinwiddie and Askia Booker added 17 and 11, respectively. Dinwiddie contributed seven rebounds and Booker six. Junior Jeremy Adams left the bench for seven points, and senior Sabatino Chen – opening in Roberson’s place – got six.
Oregon has three players with 10 points each – Jonathan Lloyd, Ben Carter and Arsalan Kazemi.
Chen returning the starting five gave the Buffs a smaller than usual lineup that produced matchup problems for the Ducks. Said Oregon coach Dana Altman: “They went small and we had a little trouble with that and then (Xavier) Johnson stepped up and hit a lot of shots, so he played really well. (He) really made a big difference in the game.”
Even without Roberson’s 11.5-board average (he also averages 10.8 points) and fierce defensive presence, the Buffs outrebounded the Ducks 38-35 and held them to 35.7 percent shooting. CU now has held nine consecutive Pac-12 Conference opponents under 70 points – the most since 16 foes were held under 70 during the entire 1962 Big Eight season and the first two games of the following season.
“Rebounding is always our emphasis,” Dinwiddie said. “We like to say that defensive rebounding is the pillar of our program. But of course when someone like Andre goes out and rebounding is their specialty, you have to pick up the slack in that area. We just all had to pick up the rebounds as a team.”
CU improved to 20-9 overall – its school-record third 20-win season, all under Boyle – and 10-7 in the Pac-12. Oregon, needing a win to clinch a tie for first place in the conference, leaves Boulder 23-7, 12-5.
CU has had its share of injury/illness problems over the past three weeks. Freshman center Josh Scott was in his second game back since missing two with a concussion. He returned last weekend at California, scoring four points but hauling down 11 rebounds, and he collected eight on Thursday night with another four points.
Then comes Roberson’s illness . . . but the Buffs were a team on a mission. Johnson said Roberson’s absence “puts a lot of pressure on the freshman and everybody else, knowing that we have to make up for those rebounds. So, we just tried to do the best we could.”
The Ducks scored the game’s first basket – a jumper by E.J. Singler – but it was their last lead of the night. By intermission, despite Boyle having to sub liberally because of two fouls each on five of his key players, CU had rolled to a 37-21 lead – the Buffs’ largest halftime advantage of the season in Pac-12 play.
CU’s first-half defense was stifling, limiting Oregon to 18 percent shooting (3-for-16) in the first 10 minutes. By intermission the Ducks’ shooting had improved, but not by much – 7-for-26 (27 percent). The Buffs, meanwhile, improved on their 23 percent shooting last weekend at Cal, going 13-of-27 (48 percent) and hitting half of their eight three-point attempts.
Needing to at least maintain their intensity to open the second half, the Buffs took it a step further, outscoring the visitors 8-4 over the first 5 minutes to race ahead by 20 (45-25).
With 12:31 to play, CU pushed its advantage to 24 (55-31) on a pair of Dinwiddie free throws after a flagrant foul on Oregon. The Ducks could only get as close as 17 points in the final 10 minutes, and the Buffs pushed their advantage to 25 (71-46) before it was over.
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