Colorado University Athletics
Brooks: Play The Way You Practice? Not Always
March 23, 2011 | Women's Basketball, B.G. Brooks
It doesn't happen often, but it did on Sunday (bad practice) and Monday (good game) for Linda Lappe's Colorado women's basketball team.
On Sunday afternoon at the Coors Events Center, her bunch should have been on spring break with the rest of their classmates - an observation Lappe emphatically made a couple of times during the Buffs' walkabout workout.
Monday night on the same court, after heads were cleared in an earlier shootaround, they barely resembled the team that lolled around the previous afternoon. Crisp and focused, the Buffs rolled up a season-high 50 first-half points and went on to dismantle California 81-65 in the second round of the WNIT, earning them a third-round trip to Wyoming on Thursday (7 p.m.).
I'm easily dumbfounded, but I was probably more dumbfounded than Lappe about the night-and-day, practice-to-game turnaround. When I asked her to explain it again Wednesday, Lappe answered philosophically.
"It was one of those things that just happens," she said. "Sometimes teams get complacent in practice . . . they just had a tough time being there on Sunday afternoon. The dorms are vacated, their friends are on spring break. It can be the same during Christmas break.
"Basketball players sometimes have the toughest season, because it spans such a long time and encompasses breaks or vacation for the rest of the student body. But this time of year, the postseason, is why we do everything else in the off-season and the regular season . . . I think they understand that now and how neat it is to still be playing."
In mid-October, not many outside the Events Center expected Lappe's team to be eligible for the postseason, much less win a couple of games if it got there. CU was a consensus (or close) choice by the league coaches to finish last in the Big 12 Conference. Instead it won six games and finished tied with Kansas for seventh place. Since a Feb. 23 upset of then-No. 16/15 Oklahoma, the Buffs have won five of seven - including the pair of WNIT home wins against UC-Riverside (71-62) and Cal.
Why the late surge?
From Lappe's perspective, it has been as much mental as physical, with her players finally becoming acclimated to her, her staff and each other. At the beginning of a season, particularly with a new coach and the usual influx of freshmen, there's a get-acquainted process that in a worst-case scenario can linger from mid-October until late February.
It didn't at CU. In late February, said Lappe, the Buffs "were starting to know what each other was doing on the floor, getting more accustomed to each other, knowing the offense and knowing where the shots were coming out of the offense.
"They were also figuring out how we approach competition, understanding what it takes to win and going into games believing we could win and then doing what it takes to win."
Lappe pointed out that prior to a Feb. 26 trip to Missouri, CU was 0-9 on the road this season. The Buffs won 63-59 in Columbia, then followed that with a 64-61 win at Nebraska.
"Going into Missouri and not having won a road game, we just had to have some people step up," she said. "And that's what happened in both games (MU and NU) - we had three or four people make key plays down the stretch, things we wouldn't have done a month before.
"Things like taking charges, having the confidence to hit a key shot or free throw . . ."
Before becoming a consistently good and successful team, CU needs all of the above to be a part of its makeup from November through March. Those things were ingrained in the Buffs teams Lappe played on, and over the past month - as the record indicates - those things are making a comeback.
Thursday night's game in Wyoming's Auditorium Arena represents a test of how much of the "good stuff" her improving team can bundle from an impressive home win and transfer to a foreign court. It is somewhat of a historic opportunity for the Buffs; all of their previous eight WNIT games have been in the Events Center.
But Lappe isn't selling the rare road trip angle to her players. "We haven't talked about that," she said. "We're approaching it like every other game: keep a narrow focus and do what you do better than the other team does. We'll go in knowing not every call will go our way, their fans and student section will be loud . . . we'll try and control what we can and prepare as much as we can for Wyoming."
And that demands a different preparation, she said, from what the Buffs have done thus far. The Cowgirls (24-8, 14-3 at home) don't resemble any of the Buffs' Big 12 opponents, preferring a slow-down, low-possession game. "They don't beat themselves at all," Lappe said. "They're very well coached (Joe Legerski is in his eighth season) and will take as much time off the clock as they can and let you make the mistakes. They're a very smart team."
Wyoming's headliner is senior guard Aubrey Vandiver, the daughter of former CU men's center Shaun Vandiver. Aubrey worked her way up the Mountain West Conference's postseason honors from third-team all-conference in 2007-08, second team in 2009-10, to first team and MWC player-of-the-year this season. She averages 19.1 points a game in Wyoming's motion offense, the same style CU saw against UC-Riverside. Now the Buffs will see it on someone else's court.
"We know the challenges of playing up there; it could be an ugly game (low scoring), it could be very pretty," Lappe said. "But I think our team showed they still want to play; they'd like to play another (WNIT) game at home. And I think they believe they still have a lot to prove to people.
"We're in the fun part of the season now and spring break is almost over. So we might as well keep on winning."
For the record, Lappe said her team's two most recent practices have been lively and focused. Remember: You play like you practice . . . or at CU, is it you play like you should have practiced?
Contact: BG.Brooks@Colorado.EDU
