University of Colorado Athletics
Brooks: Wait A Bit, Then Poll Buffs On Pac-12's Best
January 03, 2013 | Women's Basketball, B.G. Brooks
But there are a couple of media types who might have been more prescient (or perhaps more delusional) than their peers when ballots were cast a couple of months ago to pick a preseason Pac-12 Conference champion.
First, a hoops history lesson - and the Cardinal's history is impossible to overlook: Stanford has won or shared the league championship in every season this decade, has posted 78 consecutive conference wins (regular season/conference tournament) and has made Final Four appearances in each of the past five seasons.
Yet, a couple of media guys (or gals) recently summoned the temerity, gasp, to place Stanford behind California on their preseason ballots. Of course, a dozen of the 14 first-place votes went to the Cardinal, which ultimately restored some sanity to the questionable practice of forecasting champions.
Rather than polling the media, checking in with the No. 20 Colorado Buffaloes late Sunday afternoon might be the best idea. No. 4 Stanford, recently demoted from No. 1 after a humbling home loss to now top-ranked Connecticut, visits the Coors Events Center on Friday (8 p.m.). Two days later (Sunday, noon) comes a visit by No. 7 Cal.
Is it a wonderful weekend to be a Buff or what? You bet it is, said junior guard Brittany Wilson: "No doubt we're starting the conference harder than anybody else. But we're ready and we're ready to show everybody else that we're ready. It's a good opportunity for us."
Teammate Arielle Roberson agreed: "I think it's good; it's how we set the tone for the rest of the conference, with two tough games back to back. If we do well, it'll establish us in the conference . . . it all depends on how you look at it. The next step for us is taking care of business in the conference. If teams don't know about us, they will."
Earning that peer recognition will be difficult. Count on the Cardinal arriving in Boulder seeing . . . well, you know. Last weekend's 61-35 loss to UConn shattered Stanford's 82-game home winning streak. That type of smackdown can have lasting psychological implications - or it can be one monstrous motivator.
CU coach Linda Lappe is counting on the latter, but she's not really as concerned with how much the Cardinal is fuming as she is with how her Buffs are performing. Said Lappe: "We try not to worry about what they're thinking or doing; we can't control that. Yes, they just lost at home against a really good Connecticut team. I'm sure they'll be focused and ready to bounce back. I'm sure they'll want to start off conference play in the right way. But we can't control that. We'll worry about what we do. We'll focus on what it takes us to be successful."
That formula is to play hard, smart and efficient, with the emphasis on playing hard and tough-minded. Lappe's third Buffs team is her most talented and most balanced, but it needs to be augmented by a steely edge this weekend.
CU's inside play is night-and-day better than it's been, and backcourt play - senior Chucky Jeffery is no longer a one-woman show - has been mostly stellar. Depth is abundant. Wilson's twin sister, Ashley, has returned from arthroscopic knee surgery and sophomore Jasmine Sborov has been given a clean bill of health after a minor heart ailment temporarily sidelined her.
And Brittany Wilson said she has been cleared after missing the second half of last weekend's rout of New Mexico due to a blow to the head. Her second-half absence against the Lobos was precautionary.
If they play to their capabilities, Brittany Wilson believes Friday night could be historical for the Buffs. Stanford's most recent conference loss was nearly four years ago - Jan. 18, 2009 to Cal, 57-54 - and CU's most recent win against Stanford wasn't that recent - 62-59, March 23, 2002,in the NCAA Tournament. That was a different time in CU hoops, but Lappe appears to be pushing the program back in time - a very good step back in this case.
She believes her team is "better equipped" to take on the Pac-12 this season because "we have a lot of different weapons (but) we have to utilize our weapons. We don't have to worry so much about other teams as we do about making sure we're prepared. Every week we have to keep getting better at what we do and make other teams adjust to us."
Brittany Wilson called the Cardinal "vulnerable . . . I think they're going to have a problem guarding us because we have so many weapons. You never know who's going to go off with us. You can't stop all of us. That's a good thing with us."
Don't get the wrong idea; the Buffs are respectful of the Cardinal but nowhere near being in awe. Roberson, CU's leading scorer (15.7 ppg), said Friday's expected low post matchups "are one of the things that makes us confident watching film."
Although CU is deep enough to offer her help, Roberson likely will match up first against Stanford's Chiney Ogwumike, the Cardinal's leading scorer (21.5 ppg) and rebounder (12.8 rpg). "I know there have been comparisons between me and her, but she's bigger (6-4 to 6-1) and maybe more athletic," Roberson said. "She's their biggest threat, but overall, we match up well down there."
The biggest difference in this Stanford team and its recent predecessors is the absence of Ogwumike's older sister, Nneka, the first player taken in last spring's WNBA Draft. Only one of the Ogwumikes present was huge in the loss to UConn and could be the main reason those two media dissenters had Cal as their preseason champ choice. Roberson called Chiney Ogwumike "the heart of their team," but added that the Huskies all but performed open-heart surgery on the Cardinal.
"They pressured her and really shut her down," Roberson said. "They stood her up, she seemed more frantic than usual. They bumped her cuts, forced her where she didn't want to go, created turnovers and bad shots. If we do a good job of simulating that we'll be just fine."
Ogwumike finished the UConn loss with a double-double (18 points, 13 rebounds), but she hit only six of her 22 field goal attempts. Her teammates' field goal percentage wasn't much better: The Cardinal was held under 20 percent from the field, making just 11 of 57.
Said VanDerveer: "It was a bad day. Whatever we were trying to do we really struggled with it. Connecticut came in here on a mission. Mission accomplished."
Expect that to be Stanford's mindset on Friday, but neither Lappe nor her players would trade opening against the Pac-12 powers for a weekend against any of the league's lesser lights. Lappe said her team is "excited" and would play "whoever they tell us to and be ready to go."
However, she conceded, opening at home against the Bay Area duo always is preferable to traveling. "We're glad to be home, and at this point I feel like it's going to be good for us to play really good teams - and that's exactly where we are right now," she said. "There's a couple of different ways to look at it - sometimes, yes, you want to ease into things. But with our veteran team, we're OK hitting it hard at the beginning."
Added Brittany Wilson: "Our non-conference gave us confidence. The win over (then-No. 8) Louisville gave us a ton more of confidence. It helps us be ready. These are probably the two hardest games."
There's no better measuring stick. The Buffs hope to use it as intended.
Contact: BG.Brooks@Colorado.EDU
