Brooks: Lappe's Second Team Adapts To Her Demands

BOULDER - There were a couple of things - very fundamental things - that Linda Lappe didn't want to spend time on as she began her second season earlier this month as Colorado women's basketball coach. One was attitude, the other was effort - always the Big Two for any coach in any sport.

At this level, Lappe believes if her players can lace up their sneakers and find their way onto the court, they also can show up eager to do the work - the hard work that comes with being on scholarship. Lappe was that kind of player a little more than a decade ago in Boulder, so it's no surprise what she's expecting as a coach.

When practice began in mid-October, Lappe was relieved to find that she and her staff could spend time "on our offense, defense, ball handling, shooting - all those things that if you are coaching attitude and effort you don't have time to spend doing the things you really want to be doing as a coach.

"That's been a huge asset for our team as we go forward. I think also, (the players) just knowing our coaching style. Any time you take over a new program, there's a learning curve in terms of the players getting to know your system and what you expect. Now we have a good group that knows that and they are able to help the freshman learn that fast."

Still very much in its formative stage, Lappe's team advanced to the WNIT quarterfinals last March before losing to future Pac-12 Conference foe Southern California, 87-70, and finishing 18-16. This season, the Buffs' first in the Pac-12, not much is expected of her second team - at least by the league coaches, who forecast CU to finish 11th.

Lappe and her staff take that for what it's worth - namely motivation. "We're an unknown right now," she admitted Wednesday on media day. "I think I could go through stat after stat on why I don't think we should have been voted 11th, but at the same time, we'll just walk the walk. We don't have to talk about it.

"I'm not a huge fan of pre-season polls, I wish we didn't have them, but we do. I think the benefit of preseason polls is that it really lights a fire under our player's behinds a little bit. In that regard, I love the preseason poll because it gives us a little bit of extra motivation as we head into the season."

If Lappe tags her team as an unknown, she can apply the same label to half of the conference's teams. The league has its perennial favorite - Stanford - but with half a dozen new coaches, there are few handles to be had in sorting through the 11 others.

Lappe's goal in the Pac-12 is a realistic one: Finish among the first six. She and her staff, which this season has added former CU assistant LaTonya Watson, have conveyed that to the players. And if a top-half finish doesn't happen, then, "I don't know if we're going to think of it as that successful of a season," Lappe said. "At this time of the year I think you always have to shoot for the top six."

After losing CU career scoring leader Brittany Spears (2,185 points) to graduation, Lappe is on the lookout for a go-to gal. "You can't replace Brittany Spears or what she was able to do for this program," Lappe said. "But, you have to replace some of the things that she brought. A few things that she brought was work ethic, she got those extra shots in every day after practice. She also wanted the ball in her hands when we needed to score.

"That's what we have yet to find and we are continuing to look for, is that person, whether it's at the beginning of the game to hit that first shot to get us off on the right foot, whether it's in the second half and haven't scored for five minutes, who is going to step up and get that big three, or, whether it's the end of the game when you absolutely have to find a way to score in order to win the game. So I think there are a lot of different things that you need that she brought.

"We have some players that are stepping into that roll, the work ethic roll and being able to hit those open shots. The thing that I haven't found quite yet, and I think that will come as games come and we continue to put our players in situations where they are stressed, is going to be that person who wants the ball in their hands when we absolutely have to have a shot and make a shot."

Junior point guard Chucky Jeffery was the Buffs' No. 2 scorer last season (13.5 average to Spears' 19.2), but she's most effective using her athleticism in getting to the rim. The stats that best point out the differences in their games: Spears attempted 236 three-pointers to Jeffery's 37, but Jeffery's 145 free throw attempts were a team-high.

Thus, Lappe is looking for a long-range shooter to fill the void left by Spears - and she's got a prime candidate in Lexy Kresl, a 5-11 freshman from the Phoenix area (Paradise Valley). Kresl, whose top scoring effort in high school was 53, said although the pace of the college game is faster than she expected, she believes she's caught up and that her strong suit "is definitely my shot . . . In the beginning of high school, all I really had was my shot. But then I developed the ability to drive and penetrate and do some other things. But now it's kind of coming back to where my main role is going to be my shot, I think."

From what she's seen of Kresl since mid-October, Jeffery wouldn't argue. "Yeah, that's her strong point," Jeffery said. "She's not afraid to shoot at all . . . not shy at all. She'll let it fly - and that's a good thing to come in confident knowing you can knock down shots.

"Anytime we're running a play and I get stuck, when Lexy finds a gap and I kick it to her, it's money every time. I go to crash (taking it to the rim) and I feel like I'm wasting my energy. Give it to her and it's going in; she's a gunner, she can shoot it. That's going to be huge for us losing Spears and (Britney) Blythe and Chelsea (Dale)."

Kresl was recruited by most Pac-12 schools, but settled early on CU after making her official visit. "I love the conference," she said, "but I knew as soon as I left (from her official visit). It was an easy decision. I just knew, so I committed early."

Kresl was Shadow Mountain High School's all-time leading scorer (2,404 points) and averaged 25 points and 14 rebounds as a senior. She said she is "more confident in the wing position, but I think I can play some point, too. I love even being out further (than the three-point arc). I'm very comfortable just anywhere on this half of the court."

So far, she's adapting to the college game, but her introduction to it was an eye-opener. "I honestly didn't expect it to be as hard as it would be; I thought my club coach had prepared me," she said. "My goal has always been to make an immediate impact, so I hope I can do that."

Lappe calls Kresl "a dynamite shooter. She's one of the ones that might emerge as the player that wants the ball in her hands when we need to score. She is a proven scorer . . . she knows how to put the ball in the hoop. She's learning what it takes to get open at this level, in terms of the patience it takes, so she continues to get better at that."

In addition to Kresl, Lappe's other freshmen are forwards Jen Reese and Arielle Roberson, and guards Jasmine Sborov and Esther Lee (walk-on). Even if she and the others might not have known the work that awaited, Kresl said she and her classmates arrived with the right mindset - one that doesn't require teaching attitude and effort.

Said Kresl: "I think all of us know that it's going to take work . . . and none of us minds doing it."

Contact: BG.Brooks@Colorado.EDU