Colorado University Athletics
Colorado
7-3
USC
6-3
Late Run Allows USC To Pull Away From Colorado
December 18, 2010 | Women's Basketball
Colorado will play in Sunday's consolation game at 4 p.m. MST against Dayton. USC will play in the championship at 6:30 p.m. against San Diego State. The Aztecs defeated the Flyers 74-62 in Saturday's late game.
USC provided a formidable front court, with 6-foot, 5-inch Kari LaPlante, 6-2 Cassie Harberts and 6-1 Christina Marinacci, that didn't allow the Buffaloes to establish their inside game early. Most of CU's shots came from the outside, and while they fell in the first half, the tank ran dry for a key nine-minute stretch in the second.
The Trojans also held the Buffaloes' leading scorer Brittany Spears to a season-low five points. Spears, who entered the game averaging nearly 18 points a contest, scored CU's first four points, but she also picked up two fouls in the first three minutes which sent her to the bench for most of the first half. She was never able to get in rhythm after that, making just 2-of-12 attempts and was held to single digits for the first time this season.
"USC is big and it was tough for us to get into the paint on them," CU head coach Linda Lappe said. "I thought we played great for about 32 minutes of this game," CU head coach Linda Lappe said. "And then we couldn't score...just didn't do the things we needed to do, and that we had been doing up to that point. It's too bad because we did play a solid 32 minutes, but against good teams you have to play 40."
Despite an off night by Spears, Colorado and USC played a tight first 20 minutes.
USC jumped out to a fast start hitting on four of its first six from the field and led 14-6. Long Beach, Calif., native and CU freshman Brittany Wilson scored five consecutive points, including her fourth career 3-pointer to cut the USC lead to 14-11.
Colorado shot 43 percent in the first half and received a spark from senior Chelsea Dale who was playing in her first game after missing the first nine with academic issues. Dale hit her first two 3-point attempts, and the Buffaloes made 5-of-10 from downtown in the first half.
USC countered, but from the free-throw line. The Trojans made 11-of-13 attempts in the first half, compared to just 3-of-3 for CU.
Colorado led 34-33 with 2:00 remaining in the opening period after a Dale 3-pointer and a Chucky Jeffery layup. But the Trojans responded with two consecutive scores to lead 37-34 at the half.
Neither team was shooting the lights out in the opening minutes of the second half. The teams combined to miss 15 of 17 shots, allowing the game to remain tight. Meagan Malcolm-Peck's second 3-pointer of the game closed the gap to 46-44 with 12:34 left in the game.
From there the Trojans started hitting shots, while CU remained cold. USC pulled away with a 20-2 run over the next 9:16. Jacki Gemelos and Ashley Corral hit back-to-back 3-pointers as USC increased its lead to 20 at 66-46 before the Buffaloes cut into the margin in the final minutes.
Colorado made just 7-of-34 in the second 20 minutes (20.6 percent), finishing with a season-low 54 points.
One aspect of CU's game that continued a season-long positive trend was its rebounding. The Buffaloes have outrebounded all 10 opponents this season and held a 44-34 edge over the Trojans. On this night, however the Buffaloes weren't able to use that to their advantage.
"I thought we crashed the offensive glass really well, and we needed too because we were missing a lot of shots," Lappe said. "The problem with our offensive rebounds tonight is we didn't finish very many of them. The rebounding is all heart, all hustle and I thought we did a good job there."
Jeffery led Colorado with 12 points and eight rebounds. Wilson scored 11 points off the bench while Dale finished with 10.
Corral and Briana Gilbreath led the Trojans with 14 points each.
