Colorado University Athletics
Colorado
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Colorado Outlasts North Dakota, 68-59, In WNIT Opener
November 16, 2014 | Women's Basketball
BOULDER – If survive and advance is the mantra used in the postseason, survive and learn could be appropriate for the opener.
Colorado overcame a sluggish start and with a strong second half prevailed 68-59 over North Dakota in the first round of Preseason WNIT Saturday at the Coors Events Center.
Senior forward Jen Reese scored a game-high 21 points and junior front-court mate Jamee Swan pitched in 16 as Colorado remained perfect all-time in season openers at home (28-0)
The win sets up a quarterfinal game with Western Kentucky on Monday, Nov. 17, at 7 p.m. at the Coors Events Center. WKU coasted to a 93-57 home win over Central Arkansas on Friday.
"It's going to be a great win for us when the end of the season comes around because they're going to win a lot of games," head coach Linda Lappe said. "You can see why; they don't' back down, they play hard, they're physical, they've got a great inside game, they get a lot of easy shots, and they do a tremendous job on the boards. We're happy to be moving on."
Colorado entered the game knowing the key was to stop 6-5 senior post Emily Evers who averaged 19 points and 13 rebounds in two exhibitions. As advertised, Evers posted her numbers, finishing with 21 points and 18 rebounds, but the Buffaloes made her work. Evers nine field goals came on 22 attempts.
"(Evers) is a great player," Swan said. "She is big, she's smart with the ball; she knows where she's going. It was fun playing somebody who was of the same build as us as posts. It was a real good test for us before we get into Pac-12 play, even non-conference play. I think that seeing how she plays will really help us further on in the season."
North Dakota shot out to an 11-4 lead. With the Buffs keying in on Evers, Leah Szabla took advantage by finding open driving lanes to score five of her 15 points in the early minutes.
But UND stalled, making just four of its first 21 shots, allowing Colorado to steadily crawl back into the game.
Haley Smith scored four points during an 11-2 run that gave the Buffaloes their first lead at 15-13. Colorado also had a boost from freshmen Brecca Thomas and Alina Hartmann playing in their first game. With Lexy Kresl and Jasmine Sborov in early foul trouble with two each, Hartmann came in and scored five points off the bench and Thomas played a steady 11 minutes, with a rebound, assist and no turnovers.
With the help of the solid bench, the game stayed tight for the rest of the half. Swan scored on a layup with just under a minute left for the eighth tie of the period at 31-31. UND, answered with a conventional 3-point play by Evers to take a 34-31 lead at the break.
Colorado went on an 8-1 run to start the second half which gave the Buffaloes a 39-35 lead. But Colorado went cold missing its next seven shots allowing North Dakota to close to 45-43 with 13:44 left on a Bailey Strand layup.
At that point, needing plays on both ends, Colorado really put it together.
With UND continually pounding the ball at Evers, the Buffaloes started to win the battle. Swan blocked an Evers layup attempt that quickly turned into Lauren Huggins' third 3-pointer at the 9:43 mark. That exchange jolted the momentum to Colorado, embarking on a 13-2 run.
Reese accounted for four in a row followed by six straight from Swan who hit a couple free throws to give Colorado its largest lead at 58-45 with 6:46 remaining.
"I'm really proud of how we played in the second half," Lappe said. "We settled in offensively; we settled in defensively. We told them at halftime, if we wanted to win we needed to do two things: we needed to rebound and we needed to out-hustle them. I thought we did a tremendous job in those two categories."
The defending Big Sky Conference champs weren't going to go away without a fight. Szabla scored five straight as CU's lead was quickly whittled down to six. CU responded with a Swan layup to halt UND's run.
Megan Lauck scored on a jumper but Thomas answered with her first career 3-pointer to push the lead back to nine at 63-54.
Following Thomas' 3-pointer, the Buffs went scoreless for the next four minutes. Evers took advantage with two field goals and a free throw in the first half of that span to trim CU's lead to four.
Despite missing five straight shots in that time frame, Colorado was able to get stops to avoid UND getting any closer. After a Colorado turnover with 30 seconds left, Swan made a great play to get in the UND passing lane to get a steal.
Reese then iced the game on a 3-point play. She scored in traffic on a put back of a free throw miss, was fouled herself and sank the free throw to put CU up 66-59 with just 15 seconds left.
"Finishing was one of the things we struggled with last year," Reese said. "That was a focus this year too, just we need to finish and not turn it over and I feel like North Dakota was a good team and the tested us to our full potential tonight, which was great. We came together and we finally settled down after the drought we had. We came together and we scored and locked in."
Huggins finished with 11 points, three assists and two blocked shots off the bench. Smith had six points, six rebounds and two assists in a game-high 33 minutes. Kresl dished out a game-high six assists.
Szabla and Evers combined for 36 of UND's 59 points. North Dakota missed all seven 3-point attempts and shot only 32.3 percent for the evening.
