Colorado University Athletics
Colorado
7-8, 0-4Pac-12
UCLA
7-9, 3-2Pac-12
Reese, Buffs Rally But Still Fall 90-84 To Bruins
January 11, 2015 | Women's Basketball
BOULDER – For about 30 minutes of Colorado's Sunday afternoon game against UCLA, Jen Reese was unstoppable. Her game was predictable, yet inevitable — cut, catch, turn, fire, swish, repeat.
Her career-high 30 points were almost enough to pull off the Buffs' biggest comeback since 1982. Almost. Colorado fought back from 21 points down, but it couldn't overcome an early rash of turnovers and poor shooting. The Buffs turned a laugher into a thriller into a heartbreaker and fell 90-84 to the Bruins at the Coors Events Center.
Nonetheless, CU coach Linda Lappe called the game "probably the best we've played – at least the last 30 minutes – all year long . . . I'm proud of how we competed and attacked, proud of how hard we worked. We took a good step in the right direction."
UCLA shot 50 percent from the field, 53.8 from 3-point range (7-of-13), and had an impressive six players in double figures, led by Kari Korver's 17 points. CU's accuracy was even better, shooting 57.9 percent (33-of-57) from the field, including 60.8 percent in the second half.
But neither the Buffs' late marksmanship nor Reese's individual heroics was enough. They lost their fifth consecutive game, their seventh in the past eight, and dropped to 0-4 in Pac-12 Conference play (7-8 overall).
The Buffs opened the game like the shellshocked team that committed 21 turnovers in an 81-61 loss to USC on Friday. They turned the ball over five times in Sunday's first 10 minutes and UCLA (7-9, 3-2) made them pay in transition; the Bruins turned those easy looks into 14 fast-break points and they made eight of their first 11 shots.
UCLA opened with a full-court press and it denied CU good looks; the Buffs hit just two of their first eight shots and went more than 4 minutes without scoring. The Bruins, meanwhile, used that drought to build their lead as large as 21 points.
Slowly, though, the Buffs crept back in. A three-guard lineup that featured Lexy Kresl, Jasmine Sborov and Alina Hartmann helped grease Colorado's ball movement, as the Buffs hit eight of their final 12 shots with six of those makes coming off of assists. They got Reese open looks along the baseline; they got Kresl open above the break, where she hit four threes; and Haley Smith feasted on jumpers from the free-throw line when the Bruins focused on her teammates.
"They zoned a lot, but a lot of times I think they kind of get lost in the zone," Smith said. "And then they would lose our shooters on the wings and stuff. I definitely think there were some great holes that we were able to take advantage of."
Most of the Buffs' best looks were midrange jumpers; Reese and Smith picked UCLA's 2-3 zone apart by cutting to open spaces. Reese was all but automatic, hitting from the baseline, the elbow, the wing, from everywhere.
"It's a lot about moving without the ball and trying to find the open gaps," said Reese, who added seven rebounds, five assists and was 2-of-2 from the foul line. "I feel that as a team we did that, and people with the ball were finding the open players and those players were able to knock the shots down."
The Buffs' first half was remarkably efficient given their poor start — they shot 50 percent and trailed by just nine points at halftime. CU carried its hot streak through the break, and the Bruins cooled off; the Buffs cut UCLA's lead to five points less than 2 minutes into the second half.
Reese tied the game 5 minutes into the second when she cut backdoor and dropped in a layup off of a feed from Jamee Swan. Lauren Huggins gave Colorado its first lead less than a minute later. She leaked through the Bruins' full-court pressure and buried a 3-poinnter from the right wing.
From there, the teams went back-and-forth; UCLA finally pulled ahead through persistence on the offensive glass — the Buffs won the rebounding battle by one (30-29) but still allowed 13 offensive boards.
"We probably needed two more defensive rebounds to be able to win today," Lappe said.
The Buffs' chances effectively ended with 16 seconds left, when Swan crashed into the Bruins' defense on the fast break. She hit a layup and thought she had an opportunity to tie the game with a 3-point play, but Swan was whistling for charging. UCLA had the lead, the momentum and the ball.
"It was a tough call," Lappe said. "You have to call something. I probably should have called timeout with Jamee being on the fast break. It was one play in a game that had a lot of plays, a lot of shots and a lot of calls. It wasn't the game for sure."
The loss extends the Buffs' conference-opening slump. They'll have a chance to break out of it Wednesday, when they host Utah at the CEC at 7 p.m.Â
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