Buffs Finding the Right Chemistry

NEW ORLEANS – Head coach JR Payne and the Colorado women's basketball team have found the winning combination so far this season. The Buffaloes, at 9-0, are just one of 12 Division I NCAA teams without a loss on the season.

CU puts its perfect record on the line this weekend with a pair of games in the Big Easy. The Buffs head down south to the Tulane Classic to take on UAB (Friday) and Tulane (Saturday). A pair of wins would give Colorado its first 11-0 start since the 2012-13 season.

Entering the season, a 9-0 start was not something the preseason prognosticators could have predicted. Colorado is just one of eight teams in the NCAA with three or fewer upperclassmen and had just graduated two of its best players in recent memory. Those factors, combined with back-to-back sub .500 seasons, pigeonholed Colorado into a 12th-place preseason prediction in the Pac-12.

The Buffs, who are receiving votes in the AP Top-25 poll for the third consecutive week, had seemingly been ruled out of the picture by the experts before the season began. But inside the program, it has been a different story.

"I've believed in the potential of this group from the jump," Payne explained. "With such a young team, you never really know how it's going to come together. We have so many things ahead of us still, going into the best conference in the country and starting at Utah and then at the Oregon schools. It's got to be some of the hardest trips to play."

One keyword that keeps coming up around this team is chemistry. Both coaches and players have noted that the feel of this team is just different from years past.

"I think the biggest difference this year is the chemistry that we have outside of the court," redshirt sophomore and team captain Aubrey Knight noted. "I think that we spent a lot of time this summer trying to build those relationships that we didn't necessarily have in years past. I think that it's really showing on the court. If you have that relationship off the court, it really can show on the court and you can rely on your teammates more and hold people more accountable."

Coach Payne and the rest of her staff hit the reboot button this offseason. A lot of the time spent off the court was used to build solid relationships within the team, helping build trust and unity on and off the court.

"Chemistry is probably the most underrated factor in a team's success," Payne added. "You can throw a bunch of talented individuals on the floor and if they're not really in it together with the same vision and goals, it's not going to go as well in the long run. I think we have a group of individuals that realize that we can only go as far as we want to go together. They've really bought into that. We spent a lot of time this summer, knowing that we had a bunch of new players and very few upperclassmen, being intentional about team building and developing relationships. Our biggest priority over the entire summer was to build relationships within our program and I think that we're seeing the fruits of that."

Colorado's early season success cannot be attributed to one player, it has been in all senses a team effort. The Buffs have had four different leading scorers this season, one freshman, one sophomore, one junior and one senior. CU had six players score in double figures its last time out against Denver, marking the first time a Colorado team had done that since the start of the 2017-18 season.

What has contributed to the Buffs' upward swing? It's simple. The team has made a concerted effort to change the culture.

"I think a lot of it [success] comes from the season that we had last year," Knight explained. "It wasn't a season that any of us were expecting. I think this year, people are of the understanding that we want to be good and we don't want to be this team that people come into the Event Center and just expect to get an easy win. We want to put up a fight. We want to be that team that we know we can be."

A strong showing this weekend against UAB and Tulane would be a big step forward for the young Buffs. The road for Colorado does not get any easier, playing its next five games on the road. After the Tulane Classic the team opens Pac-12 play at Utah (Dec. 29) and continues to No. 3 Oregon (Jan. 3) and No. 4 Oregon State (Jan. 5).

"I think we almost forgot how it felt to win," Knight continued. "Coming in and feeling how it feels to win and not wanting to lose is a different perspective on that. We're trying not to get in our heads too much. We're not talking about the 9-0 [start] in the locker room. We know there is still work to be done. The Pac-12 is a whole different ball game and we know that."

Both games in New Orleans will be streamed on CUBuffs.com/WatchWBB. Friday's game against the Blazers is set for a noon MT tip-off, while Saturday's start against the Green Wave slated for 2:30 p.m. MT.

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Aubrey Knight