Brooks: WNIT Second Round Offers CU Pac-12 Preview

BOULDER - Memo to Linda Lappe and her staff: Take very good notes - and don't lose them before Jan. 12, 2012.

Lappe's Colorado team plays California Monday night at the Coors Events Center (7 p.m.) in a second-round WNIT game. Remember it as a possibly telling preview of CU's first Pac-12 Conference home game on the date above.

The Golden Bears - the defending WNIT champs after their 6-0 romp through last season's tourney - might be among the youngest teams in this year's initial 64-team field. Cal's 12-player roster features just two seniors among six sophomores and four freshmen. And while the pair of seniors play 12-13 minutes a game, their roles this season haven't been as prominent as the underclassmen's.

Cal (18-15) is a team built for the future; the starting lineup usually consists of four sophomores and a freshman. Thus, the team CU sees Monday night will bear more than a slight resemblance to the one that visits Boulder next winter.

But next January's match-up isn't Lappe current focal point; she's wondering about her team's state-of-mind after its 71-62 first-round win over UC-Riverside three nights ago and what kind of first impression the Buffs will make on their new conference opponent.

"This is an important game for us as we move into the Pac-12," Lappe said Sunday. "We'd like to make sure they know what they're going to face for the next however many years . . . I think it's a very important game - one we should be extremely motivated for.

"As a coaching staff, we're trying to get our players ready to play a team we're going to be facing a lot. We're very similar over the season in that we've both had some really good wins and some bad losses. We've been up and down throughout the year. It's going to be a matter of which team shows up to play."

After not having played for nine days, the Buffs (16-15) muddled through a 71-62 win against UC-Riverside on Thursday. Lappe liked her team's late resolve, but there were obvious flaws in CU's first-round win. The Buffs let a 19-point second-half lead slip to two, but held on.

"The biggest thing is focusing; we had a lot of mental errors (against UC-Riverside)," CU senior Britney Blythe said. "I think it's really hard to pinpoint a couple of things because we know how to it - we've faced the press and we weren't doing the best against it. We'd been faced with simple rotations on offense and defense and we weren't doing that either.

"I feel like if we can focus and be here (mentally) as a team, then it'll be a lot different. People can say we were rusty, and I can say that, too, but . . . Cal will be a good test to see if we can get back in the groove of things."

The Bears might be more than a good test for the Buffs inside. Sophomore Cal post players DeNesha Stallworth and Talia Caldwell are 6-foot-3 sophomores who combine for almost 24 points and 15 rebounds a game. Stallworth is a 2009 McDonalds All-America selection and was on the 2010 Pac-10 all-freshman first team. Caldwell was a three-time honorable mention All-America by Street & Smith. Her 61.5 percent field goal percentage last season was the second-best in school history.

But Stallworth and Caldwell had their problems in last week's 74-60 first-round win at Cal Poly. They finished a combined 6-of-25 from the field, with Stallworth hitting only two of her 15 shots. Caldwell carried Cal's inside load with 12 points and 17 rebounds (eight offensive). Cal has outrebounded its opponents in 22 of 33 games this season, including 48-42 against Cal Poly. The Bears have lost all the games this season in which they didn't hold a board advantage.

In the WNIT opener, Cal also got stellar guard play from sophomore Layshia Clarendon, who had 20 points and six assists - both team bests - and freshman reserve Afure Jemerigbe, who added 15 points off the bench.

Some of CU's defensive burden inside against Stallworth and Caldwell will fall to 6-3 junior forward Julie Seabrook, who has finished the three most recent games with four fouls in each contest and probably can't afford to lose minutes Monday night to foul trouble. CU's only true center is 6-4 freshman Rachel Hargis, whose play at both ends has improved over the last month of the season.

In addition to hoping for an altitude assist in slowing down Cal's pair in the post, Seabrook believes weekly battles in the Big 12 Conference have prepped the Buffs to face strong inside games. "Obviously, the Big 12 has helped us prepare for that, because we faced a lot of really good post players," she said. "We're doing some things similar with what did (defensively) against Baylor with double teams in the post. I think it'll be effective . . . it's a lot more of an aggressive defense and I think it'll be effective against (Cal)."

Added Blythe, a Californian (San Mateo) whose father, Donovan, had scouted Cal even before the Buffs got their official report: "(Stallworth) is physical, she uses her body well. She's got that All-American mentality that she's going to score . . . He said we're going to have to do our work early and not let her catch it on the block, and try to work hard or she can score over us or get a foul. He was saying we played good help defense against Baylor and Brittney (Griner), so if we can take that mentality into the game we should be able to do a lot of good work against her, make it tough on her."

Blythe's primary defensive assignment figures to be Clarendon, who has scored 20 or more points in two of her last three games and leads the team in double-digit performances this season (25).

After the Buffs eliminated the Highlanders on Thursday, some players blamed their inconsistencies on not having played since the Big 12 tournament on March 8. "It was hard being off for that long," Blythe said. "I just don't think people were in the same routine they've been in for the Big 12 season - two practices, then a game. I think we're getting back into the swing of things a little bit. And people should be a lot more rested now; this past week was mid-terms, so hopefully people are catching up on sleep and focusing on the game."

The recurring theme here is "focus" - an intangible that wasn't that abundant in Sunday's practice. Seabrook called focus, particularly in the postseason, "huge . . . it seems we're letting our guard down a little bit even though this should be the time when we're most wanting to play. It should be the time when we have our best focus."

That is essential, said Lappe, because Cal "does a lot of things that could get us off our game in terms of what they do defensively and how they change up their defenses, what they're going to throw at us offensively. We just have to make sure we're tough enough to handle whatever's thrown at us.

"They want to get you to rush everything. You have to stay disciplined and patient with what you're doing, stay fundamental . . . if we start getting into their speed, get rushed and let them dictate the pace, it won't be good for us."

Certainly not Monday night . . . and maybe not next January, either.

Contact: BG.Brooks@Colorado.EDU