Brooks: Jeffery, Buffs Pushing For Complete Games

BOULDER - Colorado's stat crew and sports info folks always have Chucky Jeffery's back. But last Saturday night, for good measure, so did her mom.

When Jeffery, a sophomore point guard on the CU women's basketball team, came to the bench late in the championship game of the 2010 Omni Hotels Classic, she remembers her mom excitedly saying, "You've almost got a triple-double . . . you need two more assists."

Jeffery's mom, Alana Riley, is a regular at the Coors Events Center. She's the one gripping pen and score sheet, focused like a Special Forces sharpshooter on the game - particularly No. 23.

"She always sits behind the bench and keeps my stats," Jeffery said.

Riley isn't alone. As time ticked by in CU's 65-34 rout of Loyola-Chicago, CU's stat crew also was well aware that Jeffery was closing in a milestone in CU women's hoops. There had been only one triple-double previously in school history, that coming on Feb. 16, 1979 - over a dozen years before Jeffery was born.

But with the game in hand, first-year Buffs coach Linda Lappe pulled Jeffery late in the second half. Lappe "had no idea" that Jeffery was within reach of history until Troy Andre, assistant sports information director/women's basketball, passed it on to Lappe's staff.

Jeffery hadn't quite settled onto the bench before Lappe made a decision.

"There was kind of a debate on whether you put her back in - but it (a triple-double) doesn't come around very often," Lappe said. "We put her back in; my goal was to leave her in for a couple of minutes and if she couldn't do it in that time I was going to take her back out, just because you never know what could happen. Plus, she'd played a lot of the game and I didn't feel it was right to keep her in until the end.

"I actually had a sub in for her before she got her last assist, but she got the assist and a foul and then came out. So it was all kind of perfect."

The only other CU women's player to record a triple-double was Sandy Bean, who added 11 rebounds and 10 assists to her 19 points against Utah State. Three-plus decades later, Jeffery put her name in the CU record book with 10 points, 13 rebounds and 10 assists.

"It was real exciting," Jeffery said. "I really didn't think I was going to go back in because of the score. 'B-Wil' (freshman guard Brittany Wilson) and them were playing . . . then coach called my name and right then, back to back, I got (the two assists). It was just real exciting, just real great."

Maybe the greatest thing, though, was how Jeffery and the Buffs bounced back from their first-round tournament performance on Friday night. If you've seen any of Lappe's team's previous home games, this script is familiar: Start fast and fairly impressively, lapse before intermission, regroup, then close it out, usually by a comfortable margin.

That's how the game against Evansville appeared to be proceeding, with CU rolling to a 19-point first-half lead. But E'ville didn't know it was supposed to make a token run and call it quits. The Purple Aces kept running; they closed to within a point (37-36) and kept the Buffs within range until the game's final possession. CU barely won, 55-53.

Jeffery wasn't terrible against Evansville; she finished with 17 points and six steals - including the decisive one with 5 seconds to play that denied the Purple Aces what might have been a game-tying or winning shot.

But she also had 10 turnovers, and for a point guard, double-digit TOs, baby, are hard to stomach.

"I was a little out of it against Evansville . . . we all were a little shaky, a little panicky," Jeffery said. "I'm a point guard, and I have to value the ball more. Usually when I look at the stat sheet, I look at my turnovers first."

Given her triple-double, she might have made the TO column her second look on Saturday night. But when she glanced at that total, it read 0 - as in none. She'd gone from 10 to 0, and she admitted, "That was real big for me."

It was kinda large for Lappe, too.

"It was good to see her come back," Lappe said. "On Friday she was really forcing; on Saturday she let the game come to her. She didn't play bad on Friday, but I think she knew she wasn't as sharp as she needed to be and quite as tight with the ball as she needed to be.

"She didn't have quite as many points (on Saturday) but she did a lot more for our team. She was a lot better leader, and our team is tough when she scores 10 to 15 points and has 10 to 15 rebounds and has 10 assists."

Well, yeah.

Jeffery's numbers aside, Lappe's team played its most complete game of her debut season. The Buffs broke out of their "get-a-lead, give-it-back" mode, played hard and smart for 40 minutes and crushed the Ramblers, improving to 5-1 with Texas State visiting the Events Center Wednesday (7 p.m.).

Jeffery and her teammates - all seven of them - knew Saturday night's game exemplified how Lappe has been pushing them to play.

Said Jeffery: "I know she wants us to work on communicating with each other, having good team chemistry, being tough mentally, playing tough defense . . . just being a well-rounded team. And I think after Saturday's game, we're well on our way to that. I think that was a good team win - a well-rounded game."

Lappe agreed: "It was our best game of the year . . . we had a great focus. I think our players realized we can't keep doing what we're doing. Evansville was the first time it's really caught up with us as far as having a team come all the way back. Other teams have come back, but when you're still ahead by 10-15, it's hard to get that sense of urgency.

"I think they realized from start to finish . . . I really challenged them and our staff really challenged them to play 40 minutes and not to succumb to mental fatigue. I think that gets us long before physical fatigue gets us sometimes."

The Buffs have home games on Saturday (Illinois, 5 p.m.) and Dec. 8 (Colorado State, 5:30 p.m.) before playing in the Women of Troy Tournament in Los Angeles on Dec. 18-19.

Lappe wants more polish applied before that road trip, and if it happens the Buffs could have a holiday sparkle about them by Christmas.

'Tis the season . . . for triple-doubles, complete games and all things merry.

Contact: BG.Brooks@Colorado.EDU