Brooks: In Lappe's World, The Alphabet Begins With ?D?

BOULDER – Basketball and most other sports have a simple premise: Games are won by outscoring the other team – or flipping that, by preventing the other team from outscoring you.

The latter half of that principle is called defense, and it's where Linda Lappe's fifth University of Colorado women's basketball team did a collective face-plant in 2014-15.

Offensively, the Buffaloes were just fine, thank you. Defensively . . . better let Lappe explain it:

“Last year it was the best offensive team I've ever coached in what, seven or eight years? And it was the worst defensive team I've ever coached. Consequently it was the worst team record I've ever had.”

The unsightly numbers back Lappe up. Her Buffs finished 15-17 overall, 6-12 in the Pac-12 Conference. And a peek behind those records reveals that Lappe is spot on in saying last season's team might have had problems getting a significant stop against a mediocre high school team.

CU averaged 69.1 points a game last winter and allowed 68.3 – the highest yield in Lappe's five years in Boulder. The Buffs' margin for error was miniscule, their errors were monstrous. Averaging 17 turnovers a game, they were last in the Pac-12 in that category with a turnover margin of minus-5.28.

Couple those lost possessions with a squishy defense and managing even 15 wins borders on miraculous.

Lappe's best defensive team at CU (2012-13) allowed 54.5 points a game – a figure that can atone for a multitude of offensive sins and even compensate for double-digit turnovers on occasion. But a scoring differential of less than a point (69.1-68.3) for a 'D'-deficient, error-prone team is the stuff of nightmares for a hoops coach.

SO WHEN PRACTICE BEGAN earlier this month, the Buffs went back to basics. Which means every time they lace up their sneakers they're thinking first of putting a hand in someone's face, moving their feet faster, fighting through screens, filling passing lanes . . . generally playing stronger defense.

“Offense is putting the ball through the hoop and we can do that,” said forward Jamee Swan, the Buffs' only senior. “But defense is something you don't really learn growing up. The first thing you do when you play basketball is shoot. So we're putting offense on the back burner. We still work on it every day, but our defensive presence is going to be phenomenal this year and I can't wait for everybody to see how fired up we are on defense.”

Swan concedes that she and her 2014-15 teammates, for some reason, ranged from cool to frosty on the idea of defensive dirty work. “Yeah,” Swan said, “I was very slow on my feet and backtracked from what I had done the season before. I'm not sure what the cause was, but I felt like I was behind in everything. I didn't foul as much as I did the year before but I was never in the right position to play defense.”

Lappe recognized it in Swan and everyone else, but couldn't seem to get the Buffs on the same wavelength. My bad, she admitted Wednesday at the school's annual hoops media day: “We felt like we didn't have the right mindset last year, and that's on me . . . . We were a little less aggressive in how we coached defense. This year, we're back to our aggressive defensive style – getting up and pressing the basketball, moving our feet, getting in the gap, passing lanes – just being there, wherever we need to be.

“Last year we didn't play a great system of team defense. We talk about playing five versus one – whoever has the ball is not just going against their opponent, but going against the five that are on the floor. Really it's just taking pride in our defense and understanding that it's how we're going to win.”

With Swan being the only senior and the rest of the roster composed of four juniors, three sophomores and four freshman, the Buffs will be among the youngest teams in the Pac-12. It also will be among the youngest teams Lappe has coached.

But her freshman class is expected to be atypical in terms of its talent and collective basketball IQs. Lappe projects that three of the frosh foursome – 6-2 Monica Burich, 6-2, Makenzie Ellis, 5-8 Kennedy Leonard, 5-10 Alexis Robinson – might be on the floor at any one time.

“They have to be on a fast track . . . they have to catch on quickly,” Lappe said, noting that by the time non-conference play begins on Nov. 14 against Loyola Marymount the young Buffs should be working their way up to speed.

She doesn't expect productivity to suffer because of youth. All, she said, have “high basketball IQs. Things you're normally teaching freshmen that these don't have to learn. They've played at a high level to this point. The things we're teaching them are positioning, getting through screens, offensive sets . . . not angles, how to pass, when to get the ball out of their hands.

“The things that are hard to teach, we're not having to teach these freshmen. It's been a lot of fun for our coaching staff to take the next step with our team . . . there's going to be some bumps along the way and it's going to be a constant learning process. But they're highly, highly competitive kids with great basketball IQs. They want to win and they're great teammates.”

SWAN, WHO LED THE BUFFS last season in scoring (13.2 ppg), rebounding (7.9 rpg) and blocked shots (1.9 bpg), hopes her final CU team can emulate her first. In her freshman year (2012-13), the Buffs set Lappe's gold standard for defense (54.5 ppg) and reached the NCAA Tournament.

Swan's best memories of that season include “the intensity on defense and everything that we did.” She recalled how Chuck Jeffery and the Malcolm-Peck twins (Meagan, Brenna) “didn't put up with anything.

The intensity on defense and in everything that we do . . . (relates how Chucky and the Malcolm-Peck twins didn't put up with anything. When you came in after a bad practice, they would pull you aside and say you need to pull your head out of your butt and go.

“I want to recreate that and have Haley Smith (junior wing) be the Meagan Malcolm-Peck of our team and Lauren Huggins (junior wing) be the Chucky Jeffery . . . we need to have people that will make sure that everyone is on target, on the same page.”

That page, of course, is torn from the book on outrageous 'D.' What might have been underemphasized last season has been pushed to the forefront.

“Every single day when our players come (to practice) they have to know that we're going to be tough on the floor, that we're going to be focused, that we can get through anything mentally, any adversity,” Lappe said.

“We're going to be able to score at a high level; we have talented offensive players. But can we defend? I think the Denver Broncos are showing defense can do some really amazing things. When we went to the NCAA Tournament (in 2013-13) we were holding teams under 50 consistently, under 45 consistently. We want to get back to having a presence on the defensive side of things.”

It's all about “getting back to who we are,” she said. “And that's playing defense. If you can play defense, you're on the floor. It's a mindset.”

Contact: BG.Brooks@Colorado.EDU