Brooks: Lappe's Buffs Take To Road Seeking First Pac-12 Win

BOULDER – After her basketball team fashioned one of its most improbable rallies in recent memory, Colorado women's coach Linda Lappe was fairly certain there would be enough positive residue for game two of Pac-12 play two nights later.

Granted, the Buffs ultimately dropped their conference opener against Washington by two points. But they rallied from a 19-point third-quarter deficit with arguably their most effective half off the season.

Lappe had no reason to question her players' upbeat post-game responses – at least not until Monday night's tip against Washington State. Whatever mental benefits CU absorbed in the second half against UW had evaporated like a dish of water in desert heat.

Although they saw contrasting styles in UW and WSU, making any necessary adjustments couldn't explain the Buffs' Jekyll and Hyde act over a two-day span. The focus and grit that carried them to the brink of winning against U-Dub simply weren't there.

Once again, the right things were said after the 74-66 loss to the Cougars, but for Lappe words were insufficient.

“For our team actions are way more important than words,” she told me earlier this week. “I'm waiting to see what this team does, not necessarily what we continue to talk about. I would have thought that (comeback vs. UW) would have carried us. Washington, Washington State are different teams (but) I didn't see that carryover, that fight, I thought I'd see in the Washington State game.”

Monday's loss, continued Lappe, “was very tough for all of us, feeling like you let a couple pass without putting it all together to get the end result you wanted. But the good thing about sports in life is that it makes you a better person, a more marketable person when you go out and get a job. It teaches you how to get through adversity, how to persevere.

“There's no time to sulk, no time to feel sorry for yourselves. Cal is 0-2 as well; they want to win like we want to win . . . and you've got little time to figure out what went wrong. It's time to get back to work. Ultimately we have to get better in our execution offensively and defensively.”

TWO WASTED OPPORTUNITIES AT HOME dropped CU to 0-2 in the Pac-12 (5-8 overall) with a stretch of four consecutive road games looming, and three of the opponents are in the Top 25. The Buffs are at No. 21 California on Friday (8 p.m. MST, Pac-12 Networks) and at No. 9 Stanford on Sunday (1 p.m. MST, Pac-12 Networks). The following weekend finds them at No. 14 Arizona State on Friday morning, Jan. 15 (11 a.m. MST) and Arizona on Sunday afternoon, Jan. 17 (2 p.m. MST).

The opening week of Pac-12 play was almost as hard to figure as the Buffs. Cal lost to the Arizona schools – 57-49 to ASU, 57-52 to Arizona – and is 0-2 with CU's visit upcoming. Stanford scored a school-low 31 points in its loss against ASU (the Sun Devils scored 49). No. 15 UCLA buried No. 11 Oregon State – the preseason Pac-12 favorite – by 20 (71-51) in LA.

If any of those scores stunned outsiders, Lappe said Pac-12 insiders merely shrugged and returned to their grind.

“Those early scores were probably not unexpected by people in our league,” she said. “It's a really deep league, a really good league – the best I've seen since I've been in it. There are a lot of talented teams, great coaches . . . you have to put everything together because every game becomes very important. I don't think you're going to have a (league) winner that doesn't have three to five losses. No one is going through this thing without a loss, I don't think.

“It'll be interesting to see how it all plays out. We want to be able to stay in there. Dropping two home games, we feel like we have to win some road games – which we did anyway. Maybe it's a good opportunity for us to be more focused.”

With the exception of senior forward Jamee Swan (lower back, day-to-day), the Buffs are fairly healthy as their road work begins. Junior forward Zoe Beard-Fails' minutes appear on the way back up as she continues to recover from a concussion in late November.

Beard-Fails started the first three games and averaged 10.3 points in those contests. She missed the next three games and hasn't reached double figures since. Lappe said Beard-Fails has been more consistent in recent practices and is “going to get it back, it's just a matter of when. She wants it to be now, we want it to be now. But sometimes there's a process.”

Swan, who was assisted from the court to the locker room after crashing into court-side seating late in the WSU loss, is trying to battle through her back pain. “Everything's going to be OK,” she said – but that timetable to be OK is indefinite.

Averaging a team-best 18.0 points and 7.5 rebounds in two Pac-12 games, Swan said her teammates had done “a good job of getting me the ball when they thought I was able to score.”

BUT LIKE THAT OF HER TEAMMATES, Swan's defense isn't yet what Lappe wants. The Buffs are Nos. 12 and 11, respectively, in scoring defense (69.9 points in all games, 75.0 in league games).

“Defensively I let a couple of people score through me a little too much,” Swan said. “But I think I'm getting better . . . (the team) needs to get better on defense always, as well as finishing easy baskets and finishing games.”

Swan has made 11 of 13 starts and averaged 29.5 minutes in the two Pac-12 games. If her minutes this weekend are limited or even not there, Lappe expects the Buffs to adjust: “Sometimes a little change is needed; it can be a positive thing in terms of everybody else stepping up their game.”

She's expecting that regardless from freshman post Makenzie Ellis, who made three starts and was averaging nearly 15 minutes in non-conference play but has averaged just 6 minutes in the two Pac-12 games.

Lappe said in recent practices the 6-2 Ellis is “doing things she did early -- starting to finish shots, be aggressive, rebound. She can make 'toughness' plays and be in the right position. She was doing it early then kind of got away from it. We need her back.”

Conference road play might require an adjustment, but another freshman – guard Alexis Robinson – was efficient in league play at home. Along with her 12-point average, Robinson averaged five rebounds and five assists and had two blocked shots, three steals and only two turnovers.

Wednesday's practice, said Lappe, featured “some unbelievable things from (Robinson) . . . she's providing toughness we need in every way – steals, deflections, playing with great attitude, a lot of heart. I think the rest of our team is going to catch that fire.”

In her fourth Pac-12 season, Swan is CU's only senior and can speak to life on the conference road. It shouldn't be difficult to figure out, she said: “You treat them like any other game. They're important but they're still basketball. The point is to put the ball through the hoop, so don't overthink it – just play basketball. You wouldn't be here if you couldn't. So just do it.”

The Buffs' 6-12 conference finish last season included a 2-7 road record, with the W's coming at Utah and Arizona. Lappe acknowledged that last weekend's two missed opportunities at home ratchets up the need for a road win. Four chances, though difficult, await.

“You never know when it's going to come; we hope it's sooner rather than later,” she said. “It'll give us a lot of confidence. We've had some heartbreakers, some things that just haven't gone our way yet. As soon as we make that go our way we're going to gain a lot of confidence and get some momentum.”

Contact: BG.Brooks@Colorado.EDU