CU men lose to Golden Bears, throwing NCAA bid in doubt
Mar 3rd
The Cal Golden Bears are one of the hottest teams in the PAC-12 right now, having won seven in a row. The Buffs poor shooting doomed them from the start.
CU, ranked fifth in the Pac-12 Conference going into Saturday’s game, falls to 19-9 overall and 9-7 in the Pac-12. The third-ranked Golden Bears, winning their seventh consecutive game, improved to 20-9 overall and 12-5.
Colorado struggled offensively Saturday with a season low in points, field goals made (15) and field goal shooting percentage (23.1). Freshman forward Xavier Johnson was the only CU player in double figures with 14 total points. Freshman Josh Scott returned to the lineup after missing two games with a concussion. He scored four points and grabbed 11 rebounds.
Cal’s Justin Cobbs and Tyrone Wallace scored 16 points each, while David Kravish added 14 points and 11 rebounds. Wallace also hauled down 11 boards.
“We didn’t have one guy offensively make a shot tonight, but you have to credit Cal, they man-handled us,” CU coach Tad Boyle said. “Our first shot defense was pretty good but those second-chance shots were tough.”
The Buffs came into Saturday’s matchup looking to smother guard Allen Crabbe, the leading scorer in the Pac-12 at more than 18 points per game. But when Crabbe recorded his third personal foul with 5:11 remaining in the half, he took to the bench.
An improving Cal team executed offensively without its star scorer, though. The Golden Bears went on an 8-0 run over the next four minutes to go up 22-15, and while senior guard Sabatino Chen hit a three to end the half on an energetic note, the Buffs were still down four (24-20) at intermission.
The Golden Bears held the Buffs to just 26 percent shooting in the first half, CU’s worst first-half field goal percentage this season, and the Buffs’ 20 first-half points tied a season low recorded earlier this season at Washington.
Much of CU’s shooting woes came from a failure to capitalize off of Cal turnovers, as CU had a +2 turnover margin going into halftime, but had five fewer points off of turnovers than its opponent.
The Buffs found some energy out of the locker room, closing the gap back to two on a Xavier Johnson trey with 14:16 left in the game. Cal responded, though, with an 8-3 run over the next five minutes capped by a SC Top-10-worthy dunk by guard Tyrone Wallace.
Cal had widened its gap to nine by the 5:32 mark — and with a final shooting percentage of 23.1 from the field, the Buffs’ comeback attempt came nowhere close. By the final buzzer, CU was down 16 for a 62-46 loss.
“Cal wasn’t this Cal when they came to Boulder a month ago,” said Boyle, whose team won the first meeting 81-71. “So they’ve improved We were the best defensive team in the league for a stretch there but these guys have overtaken us and you can see why.”
CU returns to the Coors Events Center next weekend for its final two regular season matchups, against No. 24 Oregon on Thursday (7 p.m.) and Oregon State on Saturday (2:30 p.m.).
Boyle called Saturday’s contest “a big time game and we didn’t answer the bell. But it wasn’t because of our lack of effort and we can’t get too down on ourselves. We have two big games at home to finish out the season.”
At 12-4 in the Pac-12, the Ducks currently hold the top spot in the conference, while the Beavers are ranked 11th at 3-13.
CU women’s tennis loses another close one as PAC-12 play begins
Mar 3rd
Recent close game losses haven’t dimmed the coaches enthusiasm for her team. Colorado tennis team fell 4-3 to Princeton on Saturday.
“After seven hours, we lost a close one 4-3 to Princeton,” CU head coach Nicole Kenneally said after the match. “It came down to the wire. I couldn’t be more proud of our players. They really left it out there, and I think if you look at the scores, you’re going to see that we really gave it our best effort as a team today. I believe that in matches like this, obviously we’ve had a lot of close 4-3 losses, this team is going to grow stronger, and they’re going to get better from it. We’re going to get the better side of it at some point. As long as we keep going and keep doing what we’re doing, we’re going to keep putting ourselves in position to take one. I believe this group will do that, and it’s just a matter of time.”
The Buffaloes take a 5-5 record into Pac-12 Conference play. CU is 1-1 all-time against Princeton and 1-1 against ranked teams this spring. Princeton holds a 5-2 record, with each of its losses coming against ranked opponents.
In what was a true marathon of a day, four singles matches were pushed to three sets, with two Buffs coming out victorious. Freshmen Dhany Quevedo and Mazy Watrous both fought off first set deficits to claim victories. After Quevedo dropped her first set against Katherine Flanigan 6-4, she lost only four games total for the remainder of the match to claim the win. Quevedo now has a 2-0 record when dropping the first set. Watrous shined against Emily Hahn for her second career win and her first victory in three sets. After falling 6-3 in the opening set, she dominated the rest of the match, 6-2, 6-1.
Julyette Steur stands out in the No. 1 singles position, defeating Lindsay Graff 6-4, 6-3. Steur leads the Buffs with 13 wins this season. She is on a four-match winning streak and has dropped just two matches this spring. All but one of her eight wins in the spring have been in straight sets.
The Buffs continue their home-stand by starting conference play. CU takes on Arizona in the conference opener at 11 a.m. on Friday, March 8 and Arizona State at 10 a.m. on Sunday, March 10. Stay tuned to CUBuffs.com for location updates.
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CU women beat Oregon, gain a first round bye in PAC-12 tournament
Mar 2nd
Story by Caryn Maconi, CUBuffs.com
EUGENE, Ore. – It wasn’t pretty but it was a win. The Buffs women’s basketball team earned its eighth straight win and 23rd of the season with a 60-49 victory over the Oregon Ducks here Friday night. It wasn’t pretty but it was deja vu coach Linda Lappe; the last time CU won 23 games she was a senior playing fror legendary coach Ceal Barry and CU made it to the Sweat 16.
With the win, the Buffs clinched a first-round bye for the Pac-12 Women’s Basketball Tournament next weekend in Seattle. CU plays at 3:30 p.m. MST on Friday at Key Arena, meeting the winner of Thursday’s game matching the No. 5 and No. 12 seeds.
Arielle Roberson was high scorer with 16 points
“I think (the bye) gives us more confidence going in,” said redshirt freshman forward Arielle Roberson, who led CU in scoring Friday night with 16 points. “We’ll be rested more than other players will, and we’ll have more time to prepare, so it’s definitely a great thing.”
Colorado head coach Linda Lappe said the bye was well-earned, but that she’s setting her sights on more than just that accomplishment.
“We’ve worked really hard for that bye, and eight in a row is something you don’t see all the time,” Lappe said. “It hasn’t always been pretty, but we’ve come together when we’ve needed to, we’ve been tough when we’ve needed to be tough . . . we have bigger goals than just the four-seed.”
The 2012-12 Buffs may be headed for a similar destiny at 23-5 overall and 12-5 in the Pac-12. First, though, they’re taking care of business in the final weekend of the regular season, starting with Friday’s rout in Eugene.
It was a messy win for CU, but a win nonetheless. The Buffs forced 21 Oregon turnovers and committed seven, but shot just 34.8 percent from the field compared to the Ducks’ 37.5.
“We never really got into a flow offensively,” Lappe said. “We couldn’t convert those turnovers into baskets very often, which hurt us, and we just didn’t get the shot that we wanted to . . . when you shoot 34 percent that’s not very good. So to be able to win, that’s good.”
CU struggled offensively without guard Lexy Kresl, a force from beyond the arc. The sophomore is out with a separated right shoulder suffered in a Feb. 17 win over Arizona State.
Lappe said Kresl’s absence made the Oregon zone defense harder to handle.
“We did miss Lexy in this game,” Lappe said. “You want her against the University of Oregon, they play 40 minutes of 2-3 zone. Lexy obviously does a really nice job of for one, passing, and extending the defense out there. It was really, really hard not to put her in tonight.”
While Colorado’s defense came to play from the start, its offense occasionally struggled to capitalize off of Oregon turnovers. However, it did convert the Ducks’ 21 errors into 20 points. Though the Buffs committed just five turnovers compared to the Ducks’ 13 in the first half, CU only had a three-point advantage at intermission.
The game remained tight in the second half until the 12:25 mark, when freshman guard Kyleesha Weston lit the spark that would ignite CU’s offense.
Weston hit a three-pointer, then grabbed a steal on the next possession. Roberson then continued the run with another three at 12:07 to put the Buffs up 36-29.
“It looked a little dead out there,” Weston said. “I was told that I needed to pick up the energy. That’s when I’m at my best, when I have a lot of energy, so I felt like I could spark the team.”
Lappe said Weston’s determination off the bench was a sign of maturity for such a young player.
“That stretch there was huge, and even for (Kyleesha) to come in and knock down that three when we hadn’t hit that many, that shows a lot of guts and resiliency as a freshman,” Lappe said. “For her to step up and knock down shots when nobody else was shows a lot of toughness. That fired everyone else up.”
The Ducks would not pull closer than five for the remainder of the game, as the Buffs built their largest lead, 16, on a Jasmine Sborov three with 4:05 remaining.
In addition to her game-high 16 points, Roberson had four rebounds, a block and a steal. Senior guard Chucky Jeffery recorded 12 points and 10 rebounds, earning her 30th career double-double.
Colorado also held an opponent to under 50 points for the 12th time in 28 games; the Buffs are undefeated in all 12 of those games.
CU finishes its final regular-season weekend with a matchup Sunday at Oregon State (1 p.m., MST).
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