Colorado University Athletics
Brooks: Buffs Pursue Rare Follow-up Win
January 15, 2010 | Men's Basketball, Women's Basketball, B.G. Brooks
The CU women's team simply wants to get its groove back - and there's no place like home to rediscover it.
Coach Jeff Bzdelik's Buffs, 78-71 winners against No. 22 Baylor on Tuesday, face No. 13 Kansas State at the Coors Events Center (2 p.m., Big 12 Network). And here's a carrot worth dangling: The CU men have never beaten ranked opponents in back-to-back games.
With Tuesday's disconcerting 74-61 loss at Texas Tech hopefully out of sight and mind, Kathy McConnell-Miller's team plays host to unranked Iowa State. That tip is set for 4:30 p.m., or 30 minutes after the conclusion of the men's game.
In K-State, CU will confront a second prolific backcourt in as many games. Baylor guards LaceDarius Dunn (23) and Tweety Carter (13) combined for 36 of the Bears' total. There will be no down time for the Buffs against Wildcats guards Jacob Pullen and Denis Clemente.
Pullen, a junior, is the Big 12 Conference's No. 2 scorer, averaging 19.8 points a game. Clemente, a senior, is No. 14 with a 14.9 average.
"They're very similar to Baylor," Bzdelik said. "(Pullen and Clemente) are very experienced guys who take the majority of their (team's) shots and score almost half of their points.
"It's going to be another challenge for us in the backcourt, and they couple that with a very powerful, muscular front line."
Clemente scored a season-high 24 points and Pullen added 15 on Tuesday night in K-State's 88-65 rout of Texas A&M. Clemente produced 20 of his total in the game's first 14:36 as the Wildcats improved to 14-2 overall and 1-1 in the conference.
Buffs guard Alec Burks, who came close to signing with K-State mainly because his mother wanted him close to home (Grandview, Mo.), called Pullen and Clemente "the real deal . . . they're the truth - strong, fast and can do it all."
So can Burks. The only true freshman in the country to reach double digits in scoring in every game this season, he's averaging 16.6 points (tops among Big 12 freshmen) and is CU's leading rebounder (5.1 a game). In his past five games, he's averaged 18.0 points and 6.6 rebounds.
CU's win against Baylor got the Buffs (and Burks) a brief glance of national attention. An acrobatic Burks layup was highlighted by ESPN, which he said was "pretty cool to be on there."
But Burks was more interested in the overall result: "It's a great confidence builder to beat a team like Baylor . . . it's good to get that confidence going, so maybe we can win more games."
As was the case against Baylor (and in most Big 12 games to come), CU will have to compensate against K-State for a lack of front-line size and experience. Bzdelik again plans to start 6-foot-11 freshman Shane Harris-Tunks, with 6-10 sophomore Trey Eckloff also seeing significant minutes.
K-State is averaging 82.8 points a game and averages 10.3 more rebounds (39.6) than CU (29.3). Wildcats forward Dominique Sutton, a 6-5 junior, posted a double-double (12 points, 12 boards) in the win against A&M.
Meanwhile, McConnell-Miller and her team apparently returned from Lubbock, Texas, hoping to attend to as much mental as physical work.
"A lot of our weaknesses were exposed on the road at Texas Tech, particularly in the first half," she said, referring to her team's 37-19 halftime deficit and its 18 percent first-half field goal percentage.
"We've got to overcome that; it's not a lack of talent (or) effort. I just think there are times when things tend to go south, we need to be more effective in (stopping) that. I don't want to have to have a personnel change to get us to do that, it's got to be somebody on the floor really taking command of what's going on and getting us going in the right direction . . .
"That didn't happen (at Tech). It was an area were exposed in and needed to fight through. The second half we did, but it took a lot to get to that point."
CU's leading scorer, junior Brittany Spears, was held to a season-low three points, making just one of seven shots. She averages 18.4 points a game.
McConnell-Miller said Tech constantly double-teamed Spears and "just teed off on her . . . they pretty much eliminated her touches."
Still, working harder to get open could have brought Spears out of her funk, said McConnell-Miller: "She needed to realize some screens a little bit better to allow her to get into a flow. I think the frustration set in and she started to force things a little bit - and it really just took her out of her game.
"I don't necessarily think Tech took her out of her game, I think she took herself out of her game . . . she just changed and sort of reverted to some things she did early in her career. I think it was a wake-up call."
Senior guard Bianca Smith, second to Spears in scoring with a 14.1 average, said the Buffs "left our mental toughness (in Boulder). A lot of players got a little spooked at being on the road. Starting out cold and giving up transition buckets doesn't help on the road."
CU righted itself somewhat in the second half, but not enough to overcome its first half flop. Smith doesn't expect any fallout: "I don't think you can have any lingering effects in the Big 12. You can't let the last game affect the next game. We lost that one, but we're ready to come back and get Iowa State."
The Cyclones are 12-3 overall, but two of their losses have been in back-to-back conference games against No. 11 Nebraska (57-49) and No. 8 Texas A&M (68-44).
Under coach Bill Fennelly (15th season), Iowa State annually is among the league's top three-point shooting teams. The Cyclones are third in the Big 12 in three-point field goal percentage (.417, 126-of-302), while the Buffs are fifth (.372, 122-of-328).
"That's what they do," McConnell-Miller said of Fennelly and the Cyclones. "For the first time, I'm really seeing how he develops players . . . how they evolve. They all shoot threes, they all have the green light. We have to be prepared for that."
Contact: BG.Brooks@Colorado.EDU
