Colorado University Athletics
Colorado
11-15,4-11Pac-12
Oregon State
24-2,14-1Pac-12
Cold Second Half Dooms CU In 66-44 Loss to No. 7 OSU
February 20, 2015 | Women's Basketball
BOULDER ? Before Friday night's game Colorado women's basketball coach Linda Lappe had beseeched her players to attack the No. 7 Oregon State Beavers with a sense of urgency, and for one half the Buffs did. For one half, they looked equal to the Pac-12's best team.
But only for one half. Oregon State erupted after the break and cruised to a 66-44 victory behind 17 points and 10 rebounds from Jamie Weisner and 14 points from Ali Gibson. Jen Reese led the Buffs with 19 points and eight rebounds, but Colorado's offense, despite only 11 turnovers, failed it for much of the night.
"We took them out of their element, but then someone else stepped up," Lappe said. "I really liked the fight of our team. I really like how hard we played and how tough we played defense, especially in the first half."
The Buffs (11-15, 4-11) played one of the best halves of defense they have all season, holding the Beavers (24-2, 14-1) to 33 percent shooting and never letting them get comfortable inside. Oregon State center Ruth Hamblin leads the Pac-12 in field goal percentage, but Jamee Swan blocked Hamblin's first shot and bothered her into a 1-of-4 shooting night.
The Beavers committed 10 first-half turnovers, including multiple travels and backcourt violations. Oregon State rarely plays so sloppily, and much of the Beavers' offense came from the five threes that they made.
"Just being able to turn them into one-on-one players," Lappe said. "I thought our help-side was very good. We were clogging up the paint, we were being tough on the inside."
Colorado's first-half offense was in little better shape, though ? the Buffs shot just 38 percent, and Hamblin's rim protection deterred them from any kind of interior shot. Colorado settled for midrange jumpers early, and bricked its way to a 20-9 deficit.
But Hamblin went to the bench after committing her second foul, and the Buffs attacked. Reese made Colorado's first layup slightly more than 15 minutes into the half, then she and Swan got to the rim at will. They ignited a 17-6 run that Reese capped with a trey to give the Buffs a brief lead before the squads went to halftime deadlocked at 26.
"Shots not going in aren't something you can control, whereas defending you can control," said Swan, who scored 13 points on 5-of-14 shooting. "We all just decided today that we're going to play defense and defense is going to be our big goal. That's it. We just decided to play and we played the best defense we've played most of the season."
Oregon State has devastated the Pac-12 for a reason, though, and the Beavers began to assert their dominance in the second half. They took better care of the ball ? they committed only four turnovers after the break ? and their offense turned into the cutting, screening, passing behemoth that carved up every foe it has thus far faced.
The driving lanes that Colorado choked off in the first half were wide open in the second; all but two of Oregon State's 24 points in the paint came in the second half. The Beavers assisted on 11 of their 17 second-half buckets, and if basketball tracked that stat like hockey does they would have had many more ? they moved the ball side-to-side before finding open cutters or shooters, and shot 63 percent in the half.
"They're number one in the league for a reason and you can see why," Lappe said. "They have such good balance, they're tough and they shoot the ball well."
The Buffs simply couldn't match that for 40 minutes. Even with Hamblin fighting foul trouble, Colorado struggled to finish inside and outside and everywhere in between. The Buffs shot just 17 percent after halftime; they made just four shots in the second half, hitting just of their last 17 attempts; they didn't hit a three, and Reese went without a make.
"They changed how they were guarding on-ball screens," Lappe said. "They really forced us to take some outside shots. They stayed a lot tighter to Jen, kept somebody pretty much glued to her."
It didn't matter who Oregon State played inside; their bigs warded off every Colorado attack. The Beavers only blocked two shots in the game, but their presence and size were enough as the Buffs scored just two points in the paint in the second half.
"They were just long," Swan said. "And they're really good at defending around the paint."
"We weren't attacking as much as we should have," Reese added.
Colorado is back in action against Oregon Sunday at 2 p.m. The Ducks aren't the inexorable force that their neighbors from Corvallis are, but the Buffs will need more than one urgent half if they wish to split this home stand and make Senior Day a pleasant one for Reese, Jasmine Sborov and Lexy Kresl.
