Brooks: CU Must Shift Gears Fast For No. 4 Stanford

BOULDER - Powerful Stanford has been lurking in the back of the collective minds of Colorado women's basketball team for a while now, and that might be a very good thing.

At this point, if any building anticipation of playing the No. 4 Cardinal can override the memory of Thursday night's monumental second-half collapse against California, then the sooner the better for the Buffaloes.

Sooner would be ideal; Stanford visits the Coors Events Center on Saturday (4 p.m., ROOT Sports) and if CU hasn't flushed the nightmare of losing a 12-point lead, allowing Cal a 29-4 closing run, and not scoring in the game's final 7:10, then the Buffs are running headlong into trouble.

CU junior point guard Chucky Jeffery doesn't believe that will be the case. "We've been pumped for this one since the beginning of the year; we're excited," she said. "It's tough just having that one day in between (games), but like coach says this is good to get this one (Cal) behind us and move on to another opponent. It can be good and bad. But it's all about focus; you have to learn how to change gears and move on to who you're playing next."

Jeffery was CU's only effective second-half player against Cal, scoring 12 of the Buffs' 18 second-half points and finishing with a game-high 21. She was joined in double figures by only one teammate - Rachel Hargis, who played a stellar first half and scored 10 points but was shutout in the second half when the Bears switched to a zone defense and baffled the Buffs.

During several practices preceding the Cal game, Hargis had been a target of coach Linda Lappe, who was trying to get more intensity and overall efficiency from the 6-4 sophomore. Hargis responded, hitting four of her 10 field goal attempts, both of her free throw attempts and adding five rebounds and three blocked shots.

"Coach got on me (Wednesday) in practice about being tougher and smarter in the post . . . I had it out for Cal," Hargis said. "I just wanted to prove to coach what I know I'm capable of doing. I know I'll continue to get better and will be able to help out my team from now on."

Saturday afternoon would be a fine time for her upgrade to continue. Stanford is loaded with talented front court players, starting with the Ogwumike sisters - 6-3 Chiney, a sophomore, and 6-2 Nnemkadi, a senior who averages 24 points and 12 rebounds a game (both totals lead the Pac-12 Conference). Chiney also is averaging a double-double, 14.4 points and 10.1 boards.

They combined for 29 points and 27 rebounds on Thursday night in Stanford's 62-43 win at Utah. It was the Cardinal's school-record 62nd consecutive win against a Pac-12/Pac-10 opponent.

"They've got some good players, and the Ogwumike sisters are great players," Jeffery said. "It's going to be a tough matchup for us. We've got to come out with energy and have focus, not for just those 32 minutes (as in the Cal loss) but the whole game. We do that and I think we can give Stanford a good run for their money. We're pretty excited about it; the energy is going to be amped up a lot."

This week marks CU's second experience - the first at home - with the Pac-12's Thursday/Saturday scheduling format. Last week the Buffs lost on Thursday night at Washington before regrouping for a win on Saturday at Washington State. The Cal loss left them 2-2 in conference play and 13-2 overall, while the Cardinals is 5-0, 14-1.

Of the short turnaround between conference games, Lappe said, "We'd better get used to it; that's how it is every single game here on out. It's tough to prepare (but) everybody's in the same boat . . . we have to fight. Stanford's the number four team in the country and it's going to take a full 40 minutes.

"There's no way we can even play 39 minutes and expect to compete against them. I think it's always tough, but the good thing is you can get rid of this one (Cal) fast. After this game, we watch it and move on."

What Lappe, her staff and players will see in the Cal tape is a sluggish start by CU, an exceptional finish to the first half (37-30 lead after trailing by 11 at one point), a good second-half start that resulted in a 12-point lead, then a meltdown.

"We saw what was getting us the lead at the end of the (first) half, running in transition and things like that," Jeffery said. "We knew we had to come out like that (in the second half). I think we did a great job in that . . . then they switched defenses on us."

Of Cal's strategical shift, Jeffery said she didn't believe it was a "case of us going, 'Whoa, it's a zone'" because the Buffs had seen some of it in the previous game against Washington State. "We were just missing shots and they were coming down and making shots. That just really killed us. We didn't score for about seven or eight minutes and that's not going to help us in any case."

Still, the Buffs reacted to the Bears zone with near disbelief that quickly turned into disarray. After building its first- and second-half leads mainly through an up-tempo transition game, CU's pace was slowed by the Cal zone and the Buffs' shooting went frigid. CU shot 44.1 percent (15-of-34) in the first half, 29.6 (8-of-27) in the second. Starters Hargis (10 points), Lexy Kresl (7) and Meagan Malcolm-Peck (3) scored all of their points in the first 20 minutes.

Plus, the Buffs' nearly error-free final 12 minutes of the first half gave way to nine second-half turnovers (14 for the game) while the Bears were committing just four in each half. Couple that stat with CU's suddenly puzzling inability to guard and, well, a 29-4 Cal run to end the game was explainable if not palatable.

Lappe and her players say they can bounce back, even against a Stanford team whose only loss was at then-No. 2 Connecticut (68-58) in November. Because she is a team leader, Jeffery said Stanford's visit "is going to test a lot about my character. Stanford can score . . . usually when teams go on runs we get down and start going all over the place. Coach has told me I have to learn how to react and regroup the team and get us back together. That's what I'm going to have to focus on."

General admission tickets for Saturday's game are available for $3 at CUBuffs.com/tickets or at the box office prior to the contest.

Contact: BG.Brooks@Colorado.EDU