Buffs Prepping for Potential Postseason

BOULDER - An early exit from last week's Pac-12 Tournament hasn't stopped the Colorado women's basketball team from the hardwood. The Buffaloes returned to practice this week in preparation for a potential postseason berth.

The 16-14 Buffs will find out on Monday night if they will be selected for the 64-team WNIT field. In the meantime, the team is carrying on with business as usual.

This week of preparation, without any games, is almost a throwback to the preseason. The time on the hardwood this week allows for the team to focus on themselves while an unknown opponent waits in the wings.

"I was just talking to the coaching staff about how rare it is during a basketball season that you can just focus on you," head coach JR Payne explained. "At the beginning of the season, that's what you do and then everything kind of turns into scout-based practices. This week we truly are just going to focus on us and areas that we need to improve."

The Buffaloes hope a WNIT selection will extend the season far into March. The benefit of extra practice and games provides nothing but positives for the young Colorado squad. Senior Quinessa Caylao-Do is the only current player who has any postseason experience, playing in the WNIT her freshman season.

"It's [the extra practice] invaluable," Payne continued. "I saw earlier today there are three top-25 teams right now that played in the WNIT last year. There's a lot of great teams that play into March and I'm hoping that we're one of them. For a young ballclub to be able to have more practice time, more experience throughout the season this late in the year would be invaluable for us."

For evidence of a team's success in the WNIT carrying over into the following season, you'd have to look no further than CU's Pac-12 rival Arizona. The Wildcats won the WNIT last season and parlayed that into a 24-win season and a certain trip to the NCAA Tournament this year.

"I actually did talk to the team about Arizona's success," Payne added. "Arizona was lucky enough to host every single game of the WNIT last year, which was so good for them. They were a young team and I think they rode that all the way through this year season. There's no reason that we can't have the same sort of postseason."

The first round of the WNIT is slated for Mar. 18-20. There are 32 automatic bids and then the field gets filled out with 32 at-large bids. Each game is played at the designated host site.

The WNIT field and bracket will be announced late on the evening of the NCAA Tournament selections.

Colorado University Athletics

Players Mentioned

Quinessa Caylao-Do

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