Colorado University Athletics
Brooks: First Three Left Little Room For Error
January 19, 2010 | Men's Basketball, Women's Basketball, B.G. Brooks
Opening against three Top 25 opponents - No. 2 Texas, No. 22 Baylor and No. 13 Kansas State - CU was asked to go from zero to 120 at the initial whistle.
Yet in winning one of the three (78-71 vs. Baylor) and maintaining their competitiveness throughout, the young Buffaloes have held up reasonably well.
Finally, they get a break . . .
Sure they do - if this is your definition of a break: They play Wednesday night (7 p.m., ESPNU) at unranked Oklahoma State, which is 9-0 this season at Gallagher-Iba Arena - arguably the league's rowdiest venue.
The Buffs (10-7, 1-2) haven't won a league road game since an 80-78 overtime win in Gallagher-Iba in 2006. For anyone counting, that's a 30-game Big 12 road losing streak.
And there's more subtext to this match-up, with most of the fine print merely increasing the degree of difficulty for the Buffs.
Reeling from consecutive Big 12 road losses - 62-57 in OT at Oklahoma, 83-70 at Baylor - the Cowboys (13-4, 1-2) return home for the first time since opening conference play with an 81-52 flogging of Texas Tech on Jan. 9.
Plus, for the fourth consecutive game, CU faces yet another versatile, high-scoring guard. This time, it's OSU's James Anderson, whose 21.6 average leads the Big 12.
As of Monday, the Buffs still were pondering defensive assignments based on whether the Cowboys use a four-guard starting lineup - their recent preference - or opt to go bigger against their undersized opponent.
"I think we'll treat (Anderson) like we have some of the other good players we've faced . . . just stay with him and make every shot hard for him - and double him when we can," offered Marcus Relphorde, who at 6-foot-7 stands an inch taller than Anderson.
OSU's other double-figure scorers are 6-5 guard Obie Muonelo (12.0) and 6-7 forward Marshall Moses (10.9).
Additionally, Moses is the Big 12's No. 4 rebounder (9.4 a game) and is one of four Cowboys ranked among the first 20 in the league in that category (CU has none). Moses and his teammates obviously are getting to the boards en masse - a pitch Buffs coach Jeff Bzdelik constantly makes to his team.
As a team, OSU ranks ninth in rebounding (37.4) while CU is last (29.1).
After CU's 87-81 loss against K-State Saturday, Nuggets star and former Buffs great Chauncey Billups addressed the current Buffs. Relphorde said Billups acknowledged the Buffs are size challenged, but also told them, "That just means we have to keep fighting.
"He said sometimes in the NBA, people might be undersized, but if you keep fighting you can do good things. He told us to hang in there (and) said we had a lot of good players and thought we should win some games this year.
"It feels good to hear it from somebody of his stature, though. It was a positive."
Relphorde, a junior college transfer, has been involved in only one of the Buffs' lengthy streak of league road losses - 103-86 two weekends ago in Austin, Texas. CU's road mindset, he said, must change.
"I've never really looked at the road as a place you can't win," he said. "I know we've had trouble on the road this year and in the past, but hopefully we just keep working hard and pull off some victories.
"We can't put an asterisk on road games; we have to look at it as just another game. It's basketball. Things on the court are going to be the same. You play hard and don't worry about the fans."
Relphorde, honored Monday as the Big 12's co-rookie of the week, echoed a theme his coach and teammates stated after the K-State loss, that being the Buffs didn't do themselves any favors with wasted possessions, turnovers (17), sub-par free throw shooting (27-of-40) and poor board work (CU was out-rebounded 44-27).
"We definitely could have won that game," Relphorde said. "It hurts to lose that game, but you take some positives out of it. We think we can play with anybody in our league."
That's a by-product of the Buffs encountering big-time opposition in their first three Big 12 games.
"It helped," Relphorde contended. "Hopefully when we play opponents that might not be in the same echelon as them, we can get those wins."
REBOUND AT K-STATE? That's a literal and figurative goal for the CU women (11-5, 1-2) on their trip to Kansas State (10-7, 2-1).
After back-to-back conference losses - 74-61 at Texas Tech, 68-62 against Iowa State - Kathy McConnell-Miller's team plays in Manhattan, Kan., Wednesday night (6 p.m., FSN Rocky Mountain).
Despite the consecutive losses, the Buffs' confidence isn't suffering, according to forward Meagan Malcolm-Peck.
"I don't think we have any loss of confidence," she said. "We just realize we didn't play as well as we could . . . it's more disappointment than a loss of confidence.
"I think more than anything, we want to come out harder than ever (at Kansas State). Get over it, move on and play harder."
Boxing out on the boards is high on the list, too.
The Buffs spent 40 minutes of a 21/2-hour practice Monday on better rebounding position. They were out-rebounded 43-26 by the Cyclones, and Iowa State's 26 defensive boards matched CU's total.
"That was horrible; we never want that to happen," Malcolm-Peck said. "We're thinking we can out-jump people instead of putting a body on them."
Added McConnell-Miller: "The ball goes up and we're tipping, tipping, tipping . . . it's not working for us. We've got to put bodies on people and there's got to be five people doing it."
Also, the Buffs must recognize and adjust better to the defenses they're being shown, said McConnell-Miller: "Adjusting to the way teams are playing us is very important. Early on, teams didn't change up their defenses. At Texas Tech, we saw a box-and-one, a triangle-and-two.
"Late in the game, Iowa State had a triangle-and-two on (Bianca Smith and Brittany Spears) . . . . We have to understand there are going to be challenges in every game and we have to fight through them."
Malcolm-Peck, a freshman, said play in the Big 12 is "everything as advertised . . . everybody's tough, everybody knows how to play. I've struggled a little the first couple of games. I just need to get back into the rebounding and keep knocking down open shots. I've got to get tougher and re-focused."
Contact: BG.Brooks@Colorado.EDU
