Colorado University Athletics
Colorado
10-13, 3-9
USC
13-10, 5-7
Turnovers Cost Buffs Again In 66-51 Loss To Trojans
February 08, 2015 | Women's Basketball
LOS ANGELES – The Colorado women's basketball team had a sloppy week of practice leading up to its Los Angeles road trip; and it showed for the second game in a row as the Buffs departed for the City of Angels with a 66-51 Pac-12 loss Sunday afternoon to the USC Trojans.
Colorado coach Linda Lappe summed it up succinctly: "We were uncomfortable the whole game."
Jamee Swan paced Colorado (10-13, 3-9) with 14 points and 10 rebounds. Lexy Kresl also scored 14 points but they were the only Buffs to reach double figures. Entering the game with 994 career points, Kresl's Sunday total put her over the 1,000-point mark (1,008).
Four USC players topped 10 points, led by Kaneisha Horn with 15, seven rebounds and four assists.
Colorado's season-long turnover woes surfaced again against the Trojans (13-10, 5-7) — the Buffs committed 11 turnovers in the first half and 22 for the game after they gave it up a season-high 28 times in Friday's 72-65 loss to UCLA.
Those turnovers let USC play the game on its terms. The Trojans are not a good half-court offensive team but they ran off of Colorado's giveaways and got to the paint easily in transition. USC didn't get good looks many other ways — the Trojans scored 22 points off of Buff turnovers but shot only 35 percent for the game.
Colorado's half-court defense was solid; the Buffs switched between man-to-man and zone looks, packed the paint and forced USC into jump shots. The Trojans were inconsistent from midrange and didn't hit a 3-pointer in the first half, so Colorado — despite the turnovers, despite shooting just 32 percent — hung with USC for 20 minutes.
Kresl hit two threes — one from about 25 feet and the one that put her over 1,000 points for her career — to key a 10-0 Buffs run late in the first half. Zoe Beard-Fails shot an efficient 5-of-6 from the foul line, and Swan hit a transition layup that gave Colorado a 23-21 lead going into the break.
The first 10 minutes of the second half, though, were a nightmare for the Buffs. USC's offense came alive for a few possessions and Colorado's simply disappeared. The Buffs turned it over in every conceivable way — post entry passes, stripped dribbles, inbounds plays, dribble handoffs. They committed backcourt violations and illegal screens.
Every Buff turnover led to easy opportunities for the Trojans, and they were too happy to capitalize. Alexyz Vaioletama, only a 29 percent 3-point shooter, knocked down USC's first two treys as the trailer in transition. She scored 10 points in the second half after going scoreless in the first and pulled down three offensive rebounds.
"We had too many turnovers, which resulted in transition points and we weren't nearly as solid, in the second half, in our half-court defense," Lappe said.
Colorado's only recourse to stop the Trojans in transition was to foul, and that got the Buffs into trouble. Haley Smith fouled out halfway into the second period, and Swan, Jasmine Sborov and Zoe Correal all had their effectiveness limited because of foul trouble.
Even when the Buffs took care of the ball, their shots didn't fall. Jen Reese made her first bucket but never scored again; Sunday was the second straight game, and sixth out of the last eight, that she was held to single digit scoring. Kresl's 14 points came on just 4-of-15 shooting. Lauren Huggins missed her only attempt of the game.
"They were flying at us, trying to make plays on the basketball, and really kept us off of our rhythm on offense," Lappe said.
USC opened the second half on a 23-6 run, and, though the Trojans didn't shoot well after that, they really didn't need to. Colorado never got hot, never got in sync and only briefly narrowed the deficit to single digits.
The Buffs are off until Friday, when they begin a four-game homestand with visits from Washington State (7 p.m., Friday) and Washington (5:30 p.m., Sunday), both of whom beat Colorado in heartbreakers earlier this season. An extended stay in the friendly confines of the Coors Event Center might be what the Buffs need to regroup, or it could be simpler than that:
"Really the second half of the schedule set us up with an opportunity to be successful but that doesn't really matter," Lappe said. "It's really about how are we playing? How are we coming to practice? We did not have a very strong week of practice, which when you do that and you are on the road will result in two losses. So we have to understand how important practice is along with everyone bringing their best and all every single day and be able to go out there and compete as one team."
