Colorado University Athletics
Colorado
7-23
Washington
21-9
Sharp-Shooting Plum, Huskies Oust Buffs From Pac-12 Tourney
March 04, 2016 | Women's Basketball, B.G. Brooks
SEATTLE – Washington applied a final coat of frustration to the Colorado women's basketball team's 2015-16 season here Thursday night, eliminating the Buffaloes from the Pac-12 Conference Tournament, 67-51, at KeyArena.
Hitting only one of their first 10 field goal attempts, the Buffs never led and found recovering too difficult. They cut the Huskies lead to three early in the second quarter, but were outscored 21-7 to close out the period and trailed 40-23 at halftime.
CU trailed by as many as 22 points in the fourth quarter.
"We didn't get off a great start for the third straight game (and) I thought that hurt our confidence a little bit," said CU coach Linda Lappe, whose team lost 18 of its last 20 games. "We just didn't knock down some open shots that we needed to knock down. And you can't also give up 40 points in a half. We were letting their good player do too many things that were comfortable and they got results and a lot of points."
The Buffs didn't have answer for UW's Kelsey Plum, the nation's No. 3 scorer with a 26-plus point average. Plum scored 27 Thursday night and came up with baskets that blunted the Buffs almost every time they appeared to threaten. She hit 10-of-18 from the field and half of her six 3-point tries.
Plum got scoring help from Talia Walton (18) and Alexis Atchley (10). Chantel Osahor collected 18 of UW's 37 rebounds.
The loss, CU's second to the Huskies in six days and third of the season, dropped the Buffs to 7-23 overall. At 2-16 in the Pac-12, they entered the tournament as the No. 12 seed. UW, seeded No. 5, improved to 21-9 overall and moves on to face No. 4 seed Stanford on Friday.
Thursday night's loss prevented the Buffs from extending an opening-game tournament winning streak that began in CU's first year in the Pac-12 – 2011-12.
Largely because of the Huskies' 2-3 zone, the Buffs seldom found offensive consistency, shooting 31 percent from the field (20-of-65), and having just one player in double figures. Kennedy Leonard, a member of the recently announced All-Pac-12 Freshman Team scored 21 points. She hit 6-of-14 from beyond the arc.
"I thought Kennedy had an outstanding game, just her ability to get us in the offense and get the ball where it needed to go," Lappe said. "She knocked down open shots. I thought she did a tremendous job of running the team tonight."
Leonard said the experience of her first Pac-12 Tournament "was really cool. It was tough but I am excited that we had the opportunity to be here."
Jamee Swan, CU's only senior, ended her college career with 9 points on 4-of-11 shooting. Junior Haley Smith added 8 points, going only 4-of-14 from the field.
Lappe said what Swan brought to CU basketball "everybody can benefit from and everybody has gotten better from. She makes her teammates better, both on and off the court. We have been really lucky to have Jamee for four years. It's sad that it had to end a little bit too soon, and the way that it did."
As they did in their two regular-season wins, the Huskies got out fast, rolling to an 12-3 lead on 50 percent shooting (5-of-10) from the field. The Buffs, meanwhile were hitting one of their first 10 shots. But they finally found the range, finishing the first quarter by hitting 4-of-8 and trailing by six points – 18-12 – when it ended.
With Swan scoring half the points, CU closed the first period and opened the second with an 8-1 run that eventually brought the Buffs to within three points – 19-16.
But behind Plum and Walton, UW slowly began pulling away. After a Smith field goal with 3:22 left before intermission, the Buffs didn't score – and the Huskies closed the half with a 10-0 run to lead 40-23 at intermission.
Plum scored 14 of her total in the first half.
UW led by as many as 19 points in the third quarter and CU never got closer than 13. Plum closed out the quarter on a personal 9-0 run, giving her 25 points and her team a 53-35 advantage heading into the final quarter.
Leonard said of Plum, "It was hard in the first two games we played her we held her to 18 (points in each game). I have a ton of respect for her game."
Just under 3 minutes into to the fourth period, the Huskies had opened a 22-point lead – 63-41 – with a pair of 3-pointers by Atchley, a former Buff walk-on who transferred, highlighting an 8-2 UW run.
With 4:51 to play, CU had closed to 63-47 on a pair of Leonard treys, but the outcome had been decided.
Contact: BG.Brooks@Colorado.EDU
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