Colorado University Athletics
Brooks: Boyle, Lappe Seek Progress Reports Saturday
December 03, 2010 | Men's Basketball, Women's Basketball, B.G. Brooks
BOULDER - If gathering around a conference table qualifies as a huddle, I've spent some of the past 24 hours huddled with "high-ranking university officials" sifting through a few things that may or may not prove newsworthy - and what among those items can be published immediately on CUBuffs.com.
Use your imagination on this . . . that's all I can say for now.
But the "high-ranking university officials" and I determined this qualifies as a major, releasable story, and we are free (at last, free at last) to run with it:
"The Colorado men's and women's basketball teams will play Oregon State and Illinois, respectively, in a Saturday doubleheader at the Coors Events Center. Tip-offs are at 5 p.m. and 8 p.m., CUBuffs.com has learned."
And you thought this website seldom is out front on breaking news? Not that it applies here, but as we used to joke in several newsrooms I inhabited in another life, "If it's news, it's news to us."
(Memo to the bosses: You do know that tongue is in cheek here, don't you? I haven't been around long enough to know who can take a joke and who can't.)
Now, on to the weekend's, er, top story . . .
Tad Boyle and Linda Lappe, CU's first-year men's and women's hoops coaches, see Saturday night's twin-bill as bona fide yard sticks to measure their programs' progress over the past month.
Boyle's team still hasn't solved the long-standing road curse that shrouded his predecessors. I think you might have to return to the Chauncey Billups Era to find a Buffs team that left Boulder believing it could win.
But that's an issue to be addressed later - maybe Dec. 22-23 when the Buffs play in the IBN Sports Las Vegas Classic. For now, Boyle's team is one game into a five-game homestand and, like Lappe's team, undefeated at the Events Center. Home records for his/her Buffs: 3-0, 6-0.
Boyle and Lappe each have stressed defensive improvement, and done so with positive results. Boyle's emphasis has evolved from strong defense to consistently strong defense; Lappe's priority has gone from playing good 'D' to not forgetting how to put the ball in the basket.
I asked Boyle what specific improvement he'd like to see Saturday night against an Oregon State team that's coached by First Lady Michelle Obama's brother, Craig Robinson. He answered, "Consistent defense . . . three weeks ago I would have said defense, now I'll say consistent defense.
"We have made progress; our guys have started figuring out what it takes. I don't think we understand yet how intense we have to be and how hard it is to be intense on the defensive end for 40 minutes. We can do it in stretches, we can do it on a certain possession. We strung a few together the other night against Texas-Pan American, then we come out in the second half . . . . it's not there for the whole duration.
"I talk a lot about mental toughness - that's mental toughness, to be able to sustain that effort and intensity for 40 minutes. It's not easy to do. If it was, everybody would be doing it."
Lappe, who has watched her Buffs hold their two most recent opponents to 35 and 34 points, is getting everything she can from a roster that's been reduced to eight players. Depth might become an issue later, but for now, as a by-product of a short bench, her practices have been focused and spirited.
"I've been in this situation one other year as a head coach and it was the same sort of scenario," she said. "You can have almost a way more rewarding experience as a player and a coach because you're so cohesive - and our group right now is really cohesive.
"We're all on each other's pages . . . players know the player next to them, the teammate next to them, has got to bring it. They're relying on each other. When teams rely on each other and trust in each other, a lot of times you become better as a player and a coach than you would have been otherwise."
She called her practices "very upbeat, very enthusiastic, very focused. Whatever we're trying to work on, our players are trying to get it right and get it right quick so we can move on. That's been carrying over to the games.
"It's been fun to watch our players bear down and play defense, get in a stance and take a lot of pride in their defense - in both (recent) games. Offensively, we still have some things to work on and do, and like I told them (Thursday), now that we're playing great defense we can't get so focused on defense that we forget to shoot the ball and make good passes . . . there's a little bit of a balance between the two."
Sophomore guard Chucky Jeffery's game has been a picture of balance. Two games ago, she turned in only the second triple-double (10 points, 13 rebounds, 10 assists) in school history, then followed that with her fifth double-double (23 points, 13 rebounds) this season and fifth of her career.
Senior Brittany Spears (17.3 points) and Jeffery (16.6) are Lappe's top scorers, and Boyle also has a sophomore-senior duo - sophomore Alec Burks (20.7), senior Cory Higgins (18.5) - that tops his team in points. But his Buffs are best when their scoring is balanced and their defense achieves what he wants - consistency.
Against Texas-Pan Am earlier this week, Burks didn't hit his average - he got 12 - but compensation came from Levi Knutson (18), Marcus Relphorde (16) and Higgins (15). Moreover, CU didn't allow UTPA a field goal for a 13-minute stretch in the first half, which allowed ample time for the Buffs to take control.
But Oregon State comes in a cut above CU's recent competition. Boyle says the Beavers are "athletic and have size. They run the Princeton stuff on offense, so we should be pretty adept at guarding that. A lot of our guys ran that last year (under Jeff Bzdelik).
"Defensively, they've shown almost all zone. They run a 1-3-1, a 2-3, so we've got to be ready for anything. There's a lot of things to prepare for; I'm glad we've had three days . . . there's a few unusual things you don't see on a daily basis."
In terms of OSU being a measuring stick, Boyle noted, "It's a BCS school we're playing in early December and we're going to be playing a lot of them in January in the Big 12. Also, in the big picture, you look at the Pac-12 and it'll give us a measuring stick as to what that style's like and what we're going to be facing down the road."
In Illinois, Lappe's team faces a solid Big Ten opponent rather than a future Pac-12 foe. Otherwise, the benefits are the same as Boyle sees. She calls the Illini "the most athletic team we will have played; they're skilled, with a good inside player and good guards. They're very well balanced and they rebound well.
"They're going to give us more of a look of what we're going to see down the road as far as the Big 12 is concerned. We're going into this game looking at it as that and as a real test for us to see where we're at. We want to make sure we're ready to go on Saturday."
Saturday's hoops doubleheader is the second of three for CU in non-conference play. The first was on opening night (Nov. 12), the third is Wednesday, with Colorado State the opponent for both Buffs teams. Both CU coaches would like a carryover in attendance for their games - men's fans arriving early for the women's games, women's fans staying late for the men.
"It would be great if we could get that," Lappe said. "It should be a fun night."
Contact: BG.Brooks@Colorado.EDU
