Colorado
14-13,5-11Pac12
Washington State
10-18,3-13Pac12
Colorado Takes Down WSU 72-69 Behind Robinson, Correal
February 18, 2018 | Women's Basketball
BOULDER -- It came down to the wire, but the Colorado Buffaloes managed to pull out a 72-69 victory on Sunday over the Washington State Cougars to send seniors Zoe Correal and Brecca Thomas off on a high note in their last game at Coors Events Center.
Correal took full advantage of her last moments in Coors, as after a corner three from Cougar guard Celena Molina tied the game 67-67 with 1:17 to play, Correal connected on arguably her biggest basket of the season on a lay-in off a beautiful wrap-around find from junior Alexis Robinson with :51 to play. Her finish regained the Colorado lead and forced the Cougars into the foul game for the remainder of Sunday's contest.
Junior Kennedy Leonard iced the game down the stretch by going three-for-four from the line to allow the Buffs to hold the lead, but the Cougars still managed to get a last-second corner look from Pinelopi Pavlopoulou that came up just inches short of forcing overtime on Sunday.
Robinson and Leonard each tallied a game-high 15 points for the Buffs, while Pavlopoulou and Alexys Swedlund combined for 26 points and six three-point field goals to keep the Cougars close for the duration of the game.
How it Happened
Colorado jumped out to an early 13-5 lead behind tenacious full-court pressure that led to a Robinson corner three off of a Quinessa Caylao-Do steal at the 6:15 mark in the quarter. From there, the Cougars bounced back, and used a 10-2 run with scoring contributions from four different players to close out the quarter to even the score at 17.
Jank went on to finish with 12 points and seven rebounds for a Colorado team that was missing fellow forward Aubrey Knight due to injury.
The Buffs were able to regain the lead on a Mathilde Diop driving finish to take a narrow 35-34 lead into the break after a competitive first half of play that featured Washington State shooting 5-of-8 (62 percent) from beyond the arc to Colorado's 3-of-15 (20 percent).
Similar to the first half, Colorado came out of the locker room on fire to start the second half, as two Robinson field goals and a Caylao-Do deep ball established an 11-2 run to open the third quarter to push the lead to 46-36.
Washington State failed to disappear though, as the Cougars proceeded to combat the Buffs by marching on a 10-3 run of their own behind two additional Pavlopoulou deep balls and a Louise Brown jumper to cut the Colorado lead to four at 52-48 by the end of the third quarter.
After buckets from both Swedlund and Molina evened the score at 54 to start the fourth quarter, five straight points from Leonard complemented by Robinson's versatility and five total fourth-quarter points from Caylao-Do kept the Buffs ahead in an incredibly back-and-forth offensive quarter.
Robinson played an integral role in the team maintaining a late lead, as she managed to both draw a deep shooting foul with the shot clock winding down and connect on all three free throws before eventually making the play of the day by finding Correal down low after drawing two defenders.
After Leonard passed the ice test, the entire arena held their breath as Pavlopoulou found herself with a good look from deep on a loose ball, only exhaling once the ball fell from the rim to the sound of the buzzer signaling a Colorado win.
Stat Leaders
Points: Leonard/Robinson (15), Jank (12), Caylao-Do (11)
Assists: Hailey (WSU)/Molina (WSU) (3)
Rebounds: Correal (14)
FG: Swedlund (WSU) (5)
3PFG: Pavlopoulou (WSU) (4)
FT: Robinson (6-7)
Min: Leonard (40)
Colorado outscored Washington State 21-8 on second-chance points… After shooting 62 percent from deep in the first half, the Cougars finished with 47 percent… Colorado won the rebounding battle 37-28…Leonard played all 40 minutes in Sunday's contest, her fifth 40+ minute game this season… All five starters for CU logged at least 30 minutes of playing time.
Notes
Jank scored in double figures for the 11th time this season, but the first since Dec. 31 vs. Arizona ... Correal's 14 rebounds were the second most in her career, one shy of her career high set at Cal last season, and the most for a CU player this season ... it is the first time CU has won consecutive Pac-12 games since Feb. 22 and Feb. 27, 2015 (Oregon at home and Arizona on the road) ... CU's four players scoring in double figures were the most since Jan. 5 at Washington State (also had four with 10+ points that game)
JR Payne, head coach
Opening Statement:
"It is a wonderful day for our Senior Day. It was great to get a victory. Our younger guys and our coaches talked about going out and playing our entire hearts out for our two seniors. Clearly we did that. We played hard, we out rebounded our opponent, and we took care of the ball. It was far from a perfect game, but our effort was pretty darn good. I'm proud of our team today."
"A month ago, I don't know if we would have withstood some of their runs. It is tough when you are up and you have the other team claw their way back to tie the game. For us to go out and execute and get stops on defensive, really shows the emotional growth this team has gone through. That is what I am most proud of."
On What The Team Will Lose With The Departures Of Seniors Zoe Correal and Brecca Thomas
"There will be some holes that are left. Whenever seniors depart, their presence is lost on the court, in the locker room, on the bus and in the airplane. The biggest thing we are going to miss from these guys is that they have had incredible poise. They have helped us with a really young team when you can go up and down. Our seniors have kept us calm, and have been a strong voice for us in the locker room and on the court. Next year's seniors need to take that over and they have had a really good example on and have had some good leaders ahead of them with Brecca and Zoe. They will have to take over and fill that void."
On The Status Of Aubrey Knight:
"We except her to certainly play next weekend."
Zoe Correal
On season best in rebounds
"I really just wanted to do what I could do. I mean it is always nice having a good game, but after I figured out how they were playing me I kind of just went from there."
On what it means to get the last two wins while playing at CU
"It feels great, it's a great ending to being at Coors on a high note."
On how she has grown since being a freshman
"I definitely grown a lot of aspects of my game. I think that I have matured a little bit, I got a little smarter, I have been able to use my size well especially on the boards. And then it just means everything to have my family here, they can't always come out and see me. I think that just being able to play well in front of your family is a really good experience."
Kennedy Leonard
On what Washington State was doing to limit her offensively
"I think that they were just sending a lot of people at me and closing the gaps, they were forcing me to shoot it. At the end of the day it really didn't matter because my teammates were hitting shots. Even if we did shoot it Zoe Correal was getting every single rebound. Washington State has a good game plan but I guess out game plan was a little bit better."
On possible pressure on the last two free throws to seal the game
"Yeah there was some pressure. That is because I missed the first one like a minute before but I just stepped up and thought I shoot these all the time so just shoot it and it will go in."
Mike Daugherty, WSU Assistant Head Coach
Thoughts on what he saw here today:
"We saw a team with some heart. That is all I can tell you. I mean I don't know how many times that has happened to us at the end of our games and I'll leave it up to you guys to talk about the call because if I talk about it I'll probably get suspended for the next game."
About having the game taken out of the team's hands:
"After Bori [leading scorer Borislava Hristova] goes down and we are down eight or 10, we could have given up easily right there but they didn't and they fought their butts off. They deserved to be able to decide the game at the end themselves and that's what they deserved. Sometimes life isn't fair and we learned that this year."
The Buffs will go for three wins in a row next Thursday when they travel to Los Angeles to take on No. 7 UCLA (9 p.m., P12N).
