Colorado University Athletics
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Buffs Prove Resilient Against UCLA
January 12, 2020 | Women's Basketball
CU fights back from down 25, falling 65-62
BOULDER – It was a rollercoaster of emotion at the CU Events Center on Sunday. The Colorado women's basketball team trailed by as many as 25 points in the third quarter and stormed back in the fourth quarter, falling just short, 65-62, against the No. 8/9 UCLA Bruins.
UCLA (16-0, 5-0 Pac-12) needed all 40 minutes to put away the never-say-die Buffs, despite getting out to a 25-point lead with 2:45 to play in the third quarter. Colorado battled back with an 11-0 run to end the third quarter and then went 4-for-8 from long range to in the fourth to climb back to within two, 62-60, in the final minutes.
Colorado (13-3, 2-3 Pac-12) got a 17-point effort from junior Mya Hollingshed to help led the comeback for the Buffs. She also did work on the glass, finishing with a team-high seven rebounds. Peanut Tuitele and Emma Clarke both came up with big 3-pointers in the fourth quarter, finishing with 11 points each.
Colorado native Michaela Onyenwere led all players with 19 points for the Bruins.
HOW IT HAPPENED
Colorado's afternoon got off to a strong start. A Hollingshed 3-pointer gave the Buffs a five-point lead, 9-4, just over three minutes into the game. Hollingshed scored five points in the quarter, helping extend CU's lead to nine, 17-8, late in the frame. CU shot 40.0 percent at the open and led the entire quarter, taking a 17-10 advantage into the second.
Senior Quinessa Caylao-do put the Buffs up by 10, 20-10, to start the second with a deep 3-pointer. That's when UCLA's offense kicked in. UCLA had its best shooting quarter, percentage-wise, hitting 9-for-16 (56.3 percent). The Bruins put in 5-of-7 from 3-point range to help break away from the Buffs. UCLA went on a 6-0 run to whittle the Buffs' lead down to 22-21. Tuitele put a brief stop to the run, but only momentarily. The Bruins came back with a 9-0 run to take a 33-26 lead.
UCLA pulled away in the third quarter. The Bruins started 3-for-3 from behind the arc, extending their lead to 44-29. The Buffs were not able to combat the Bruins' hot start, turning the ball over seven times in the quarter as the Bruins raced to a 19-0 run. CU showed life late, closing with an 11-0 run to get back within 14 (54-40). A Clarke 3 ignited the run and Hollingshed closed with a hard drive to cap the run.
The Bruins recorded the first four points to start the final period, but the Buffs kept battling. Clarke drilled a 3 to get the Buffs started, cutting the UCLA lead to 58-43 with 8:14 to go. UCLA answered back with a Charisma Osborne layup and each team traded free throws on the next possessions to get to 62-47 with 6:28 to go.
Hollingshed scored five points in the final six minutes, none bigger than her 3-pointer at the 5:53 mark to kickstart the Buffs' final push. CU went a 12-2 run in just over four minutes. Clarke and Tuitele hit back-to-back 3's in the run and Tuitele's layup with 1:05 got the Buffs back to 62-60.
Colorado had the ball with the chance to tie the game in the final seconds. Freshman Jaylyn Sherrod's 3-point look banked off the backboard at the buzzer.
KEY STATISTICS: 11 of UCLA's 19 third-quarter points came off of CU turnovers.
NOTES: Charlotte Whittaker did not play for the second consecutive game due to injury…Hollingshed surpassed 700 career points (707)…Hollingshed tied her season-best with three 3-pointers …UCLA's 10-point first quarter was its lowest of the season…CU is now 0 for its last 18 against ranked opponents…CU held UCLA without a field goal in the final three minutes…CU led 15-12 in second-chance points.
NEXT UP: Colorado host Utah in its lone contest next Friday, Jan. 17. The Buffs beat Utah 80-70 in Salt Lake City to open the Pac-12 season in December.
QUOTES
Head Coach JR Payne
Overall thoughts
"The one and a half quarters that we didn't play well I think really cost us the ballgame. I am proud of our resiliency and ability to come back. There aren't many teams in the country that have played UCLA to that type of ballgame and a one-possession game. I think that speaks to our resiliency, our togetherness and cohesiveness. We just can't have those type of lulls. You can't, in this conference, give anybody a 20-point lead. It is just not typically going to end well. I am really proud of our ability to fight back and stay in the ballgame."
On the final play
"We wanted Emma [Clarke] to be able to get open for a 3. She couldn't get open. She was having a hard time getting off the defense in order to pop. It was a pretty quick 3 that we wanted."
On mid-game struggles
"We dribbled off our foot several times. We were having a hard time catching the ball and gave up transition baskets. It just snowballed so quickly. We are a very resilient group. We can battle through some adversity but in this conference, we cannot afford to play that way for a stretch like that. As a group, we have to figure out what to do to stop the bleeding when it is starting to go that way."
On taking positives from the game
"We are not really ones for moral victories, but our program loves to talk about the positives. There are so many positives with these two (Peanut Tuitele and Mya Hollingshed) and the entire ballclub with the family feel that we have. With the things we are doing on the court, there are so many great things. We always do lowlights and highlights after every single game. Even in a perfect feeling game, there are tons of lowlights because we always have lots to improve upon. There are so many highs and great things you can take from this that will help us become a better ballclub by next Friday, or when we go to UCLA, play Stanford, Cal, or Washington. We are going to continue to get better and say, 'This is something we need to fix and let's fix it.' We are young but we have that growth mindset. We are going to continue to get better every single week. By the time March rolls around and we are playing in Vegas, we are going to be a team I think not a lot of people will want to play because we will keep improving in that way."
Junior Mya Hollingshed
On Colorado's ability to bounce back
"I think it's just our mindset as a team. We have a lot of faith in each other, and a lot of faith in our coaches that we're going to keep playing. It doesn't matter what the score is. It could be 0-0 or whatever the stretch was they were in, we just had to take it possession by possession. The first possession we had to just get a stop, and so we get a stop and then go get a score and then another stop. It's a game of runs so you just got to keep playing."
On Playing with four fouls
"I think the four fouls were really me being smart about what I need to do and picking and choosing when to go for balls and when not to pick up a foul. I just kept playing, I forgot that I had four fouls at one point. I just got lost and kept going."
Sophomore Peanut Tuitele
On homecourt advantage
"The crowd gave us a lot of confidence. Not only our team but my teammates give me a lot of confidence too. But when the crowd gets behind me, Buff Nation behind our team—it just boosts everyone's confidence. You can feel it on the court, we are connected and we're cohesive."
On taking lessons from the game
"Our team's a young team and that should not be an excuse, but the resilience that we show is that we don't give up. I'm very proud of my team because like coach said, against a top team in the nation, we're like one of the closest teams that battled them. To show our resilience in the Pac-12 throughout, we can get progressively better as a team, as a unit."