Brooks: Lappe Wants Buffs Growing, Learning To The End

BOULDER - Every season teaches lessons, some delivered harsher and more difficult than others. In Colorado women's basketball, with two regular-season games remaining, the lessons of 2013-14 are coming into focus.

That doesn't mean the learning has stopped. To the contrary, fourth-year coach Linda Lappe sees this weekend's home games against UCLA (Friday, 6 p.m.) and Southern California (Sunday, noon) and next week's Pac-12 Tournament as teachable moments in a highly erratic season.

Despite slipping far below the Buffs' predicted No. 3 finish in the Pac-12 Conference, sliding out of the Top 25 and constantly dealing with injuries and inconsistent play - particularly in trying to close out close games -- Lappe prefers not to describe the season as frustrating.

"I'm not going to use the word frustrating," she said. "It's been a learning process. Going into the season, it didn't play out how we expected, but that's rarely the case. That's why sports are so fun - sometimes irritating, sometimes fun. You never know what's going to happen. When you look back, everyone has learned a lot through the process and that's really important.

"Would we have liked to win a lot more games? Sure. But every team, any team that's where we are, would say that. The key is how you respond. Do you throw in the towel? Do you keep working? I like how our team has kept working at it. That's the expectation, and now the expectation is to take it one more step."

In reality, two more steps at home this weekend and at least one next week in Seattle. Lappe's team is 5-11 in the Pac-12 and 15-12 overall. Eleven of CU's 12 losses have been by 10 or fewer points, with five by five points or less. Until last Sunday at Arizona, taking them to the wire usually meant late strangulation for the Buffs.

BUT IN TUCSON, IN THEIR first overtime game of the season, they rallied from a 20-point first-half deficit, tied the game on Jamee Swan's short jumper with less than a second remaining and won 61-56 in OT. That's what Lappe means by continuing to learn and compete and responding.

"It was really good to see us still making progress and wanting to get better at this point in the season," she said. "That's what we expect. We don't have the results we want so we have to keep getting better . . . we hadn't had a game like that - hadn't been down by that many points since we played Stanford at home. And we hadn't played that poorly all year. It was the worst half of basketball that we'd played, which is not what you want at the end of the season.

"However, we were able to turn it around in the last three minutes of the first half and all of the second half. We had one of our best defensive efforts of the year in holding a team to 10 points in the second half and 17 in 25 minutes. You have to look at the positives in how responded and competed to be able to make up that big a deficit was pretty remarkable."

That it was done primarily minus leading scorer Jen Reese (12.7 ppg) made it even more so. A foot injury limited Reese to only 12 minutes, during which she attempted (and missed) just three shots from the field. She finished with two points on a pair of second-half free throws that Lappe called critical in the almost unimaginable comeback. Reese is expected to be closer to 100 percent this weekend.

The Buffs also were without senior guard Brittany Wilson, who missed her second straight game due to a concussion. Guard Jasmine Sborov (leg/foot) hasn't played in nearly two months and won't return this season, and sharpshooting wing Lauren Huggins (lower leg) didn't play and remains day-to-day.

Mainly because of the injuries, Lappe's lineup has been a revolving door. "We've so many different little injuries throughout the year, it's been hard to maintain consistency," she said. "That's something you're always going to have to work through . . . but players have been in and out, in and out, in and out."

Lappe is "optimistic" about getting Brittany Wilson back this weekend and she's hoping Wilson's twin - Ashley - can remain as effective as she was last weekend in her sibling's absence. Against Arizona, Ashley Wilson scored 11 points, hitting four of eight field goal attempts, including a crucial 3-pointer during her 31 minutes. She also grabbed eight rebounds and made two steals, converting one into a pivotal layup.

"She really stepped up," Lappe said. "But we had several players do that . . . we got key defensive stops, we hit key free throws down the stretch - both things we haven't done."

The outcome of a season can be predicted - often times with some accuracty - but a season can never be scripted. That's a good thing, contended Lappe: "If a script was followed it would be no fun at all. Everything would get boring pretty fast. The good thing about sports is that it constantly reminds you that you have to keep working at it, keep getting better and have to be able to get through adversity and make decisions on the fly, adjustments on the fly."

WHEN A COACH IS FORCED into doing those things, she said, personal growth comes naturally - if sometimes painfully. I asked her what she might have learned, or is still learning, about herself in her fourth season at CU.

"Lots of things," she said. "It doesn't matter the number of wins or losses, every year you learn a lot. I think if you ask Pat Summit (legendary former Tennessee coach) at the end of her career if she learned something every season she would say, 'Yes.' You have to. You have to keep getting better and evolving. If coaches don't ever learn everything, keep changing and pick up on things about themselves and their team, they don't last very long.

"I think that's the neat thing about coaching - you're constantly learning and no two teams are alike. It doesn't matter if you lose one player and gain a player, or if you don't lose anybody or gain anybody, no two teams or seasons are exactly alike."

The Buffs opened their Pac-12 schedule playing four of their first six games on the road, with the two home games against nationally ranked Stanford and California. They emerged from those first six with a 1-5 record, beating only UCLA (61-59).

"We knew at the beginning of the year we would have a tough part of the conference season (early) and it would be better toward the end," Lappe said. "It was the same situation last year, but this year we let those early games shake our confidence. That's what you kind of fear a little bit if you have a tough first part of your conference schedule.

"You have to stay the course and understand that it's a long season and you've got to keep getting better and keep your confidence. Usually that happens more with young teams than veteran teams. But we knew the end of the season was going to be favorable to us. Now, we still have to take advantage of it."

At 6-10 in the Pac-12, UCLA is perched directly above CU in the standings. Immediately atop the Bruins are three teams at 9-7 - Washington, USC and Washington State. Stanford (15-1) is the only team with no more than one conference loss.

Of course, Lappe likes closing out the regular season at home, but she notes the way the league standings are bunched up behind the Cardinal, "Everything can move here in the last weekend. There are a lot of teams still trying to jockey for position. You can't take home games for granted. We're playing two really good teams and you have to compete your butt off on every play. Just because you're at home no one is going to give anything to you."

By now, the Buffs should be aware of that. They're 9-5 overall at the Coors Events Center, 2-5 in conference play. The teaching continues; hopefully, the learning as well.

Contact: BG.Brooks@Colorado.EDU