Colorado
9-2
Grambling State
3-6
CU Coasts Past Grambling State, 92-43
December 30, 2009 | Women's Basketball, B.G. Brooks
BOULDER - With January looming and the calendar about to flip, the Colorado women's basketball team finally can dispense with the appetizers and get to the meat of the schedule.
The Buffaloes believe they're hungry enough to proceed and succeed.
They romped through a final tune up for Saturday's visit by nationally ranked Virginia by devouring Grambling State 92-43 on Wednesday night at the Coors Events Center.
Junior Brittany Spears led the Buffs with 20 points, and freshman Meagan Malcolm-Peck and juniors Kelly Jo Mullaney and Chelsea Dale added 11 each.
CU coach Kathy McConnell-Miller used 13 players, with 11 of them scoring. Only freshman point guard Chucky Jeffery, wearing a protective boot on her sprained right ankle, didn't see any court time but she's expected to play against UVA.
In Jeffery's absence, junior Whitney Houston made her second start of the season.
CU remained unbeaten (8-0) at home and improved to 9-2. But the schedule gets progressively tougher over the next week.
No. 23/21 Virginia is at the Events Center Saturday (3:30 p.m., FSN Rocky Mountain) and Big 12 Conference play opens a week later against Missouri (noon, FSN). In between is a Monday contest (7 p.m.) against Yale.
McConnell-Miller, a UVA alum and former point guard, called the Cavaliers "a quality team" that will offer the Buffs a chance to gauge their progress. But even in Wednesday night's rout, she claimed she saw her team advance in several areas.
"I was really pleased with our defense," she said. "We spent a lot of time preparing for Grambling's sets . . . and they couldn't run them in the first half. We just really took them out of what they wanted to run.
"On the offensive end, we didn't settle - we made the extra pass . . . I loved the way we executed. The way we finished the game with the players we had on the floor, I thought it was the first time we were that consistent for a 40-minute period.
"The players that came off the bench really picked up where the starters left off."
CU's bench outscored Grambling's 42-16.
The Lady Tigers, losing their fourth consecutive game and dropping to 3-6, didn't start a player over 5-foot-9 and had no player on the roster over 6-0.
Thus, the Buffs could have been expected to dominate the boards - and they did, 42-24. They also outscored the visitors 38-22 in the paint and got 32 points off of 28 turnovers (CU committed 26).
Grambling State coach Donnita Rogers called CU "a great team. I think they're going to do well this year in the Big 12; I look forward to watching them down the road."
Rogers was surprised at the shooting ability of Buffs center Courtney Dunn, who hit both of her three-point attempts and a pair of free throws in addition to collecting a team-best eight rebounds and delivering four assists.
"No. 34 (Dunn) hit some shots I wasn't expecting," Rogers said. "(She) wasn't supposed to be able to shoot that well outside."
As they did in their two previous runaway wins, the Buffs bolted to a significant halftime lead against the Lady Tigers and coasted in the final 20 minutes.
Counting Wednesday night's 25-point halftime lead, CU's average margin at intermission since losing 69-61 at Colorado State on Dec. 11 has been 33 points.
The Buffs fashioned their 45-20 halftime advantage over the Lady Tigers by shooting 51.6 percent from the field (16-of-31) and forcing 16 Grambling turnovers that were converted into 19 points.
During one 4-minute stretch, CU hit four three-pointers in five possessions, opening an 18-point lead that wilted the visitors.
Then, the Buffs opened the second half with a 13-3 run, quickly building a 58-23 advantage and stretching it to 69-27 with 11:57 remaining. McConnell-Miller used the final 10 minutes to give her reserves court time.
Grambling never led, and CU led by 51 with 1:23 minutes to play. The Buffs' 92 points were their most since hitting 93 against CSU on Nov. 19, 2008.
Contact: BG.Brooks@Colorado.EDU
