Colorado
10-4,1-2Big 12
Baylor
12-3,2-1Big 12
Buffs Fall at Baylor
January 04, 2025 | Women's Basketball
WACO, Texas – The Colorado Buffaloes women's basketball team fell to Baylor 76-62 at the Foster Pavilion Saturday afternoon.
Colorado (10-4, 1-2 Big 12), in a game of runs, was unable to keep up with Baylor (13-3, 2-1 Big 12), who finished the game on a 29-18 run after Colorado closed the gap to 47-44 with 4:50 remaining in the third quarter.
"Everything for us this year is brand new," head coach JR Payne said after the loss. "New travel, new teams, new opponents, new faces, new styles of play, and we're just going to have to embrace it, learn from it, and move on. I think we have a team that can compete with any team in our conference, but it is a great conference. So, having a short memory, as far as what we do well and what we do not do well, we have to learn how to fix it, and then we have to move on and prepare for the next one because everything comes so quickly. Proud of the way our team battled. We were down double digits two times. Brought it back to three points. Brought it back to four points. Shows that this team has a lot of fight. But they were better than us for the part of the game that mattered most."
Only two Buffs finished in double figures with Jade Masogayo totaling 13 and Frida Formann putting up 10 points. For a second straight game, CU's bench collectively put points on the board, scoring 25 to only seven from the Bears' bench.
Baylor shot 23-of-44 (52.3%) from inside the arc, led by its top three scorers on the day, Bella Fontleroy, Darianna Littlepage-Buggs, and Aaronette Vonleh who each scored at least 15 points.
Despite Colorado having 16 offensive rebounds, Baylor finished with 13 second-chance points, three more than Colorado.
How it Happened
Masogayo scored the first basket for the second consecutive game for the Buffs. After Baylor tied the game at two, the Buffs went on a 9-2 run to lead 11-4, their largest lead of the game. Formann added four points in the first quarter, making two shots from the field. The duo accounted for 10 of the 17 points to give the Buffs a 17-16 lead after 10 minutes.
The beginning of the second quarter favored the Bears, who started on an 11-4 run to lead 29-21. Lior Garzon kept Colorado in the game, scoring five points in 43 seconds of game time to cut the Baylor lead to five points. After a quick four-point flurry by Baylor, the Buffs hit two 3s from Kindyll Wetta and Johanna Teder to get within three, 35-32, at halftime.
Colorado struggled from the field in the first half, but behind four 3-point makes, seven offensive rebounds, and only two 3-pointers and three offensive rebounds from Baylor kept Colorado within reach.
The third quarter was all about runs, starting with Baylor's 12-4 in the first three minutes of the second half to go up 47-36. Colorado responded with an 8-0 run of its own, highlighted by an offensive possession with five offensive rebounds punctuated by an and-1 by Grace Oliver.
From then on, Baylor ended the quarter on a 12-2 run, including a five-point play to lead 59-46 through 30 minutes.
"In the third [quarter], I think the biggest change in the game was the five-point play, when we brought it back to three points, and then that's just a dagger," Payne said. "But that's no excuse. I mean, it's a five-point play. It went from three to eight, and the game was not out of reach. We have to be able to take something negative like that and be able to reset, refocus, make sure we're on the same page, and keep moving forward. We can't allow something like that to sort of derail us."
Colorado struggled to score the last half of the quarter, failing to make a field goal in the final 4:50 of game time.
The Buffs tried to mount a comeback but shot just 6-of-14 from the field and made only one 3-pointer, allowing Baylor to cruise to a 76-62 win.
Up Next
Colorado returns home to Boulder to play UCF on Wednesday (7 p.m. MT).
Notes
Colorado is now 8-13 all-time against Baylor…It's Colorado's first two-game conference losing streak since dropping four in a row against four top 25 opponents from Feb. 11-26, 2024…100th career game for Johanna Teder…Kindyll Wetta's assist on the final basket of the 1st half was the 400th of her career…Masogayo has now scored in double figures in a team-high 10 games this season…Formann surpassed 1,450 career points…Oliver finished with a season-high nine rebounds…Nyamer Diew's six rebounds give her 401 for her career.
Quotes
Head Coach JR Payne
On Grace Oliver: "I thought Grace, one of our freshmen who has played more and more as of late, I thought she had great practices all week and played well at TCU, and I thought was really, really good tonight. She's a kid that doesn't really shy away from anything. She's pretty fearless. We wanted her to get in there and compete on the glass with one of the best rebounding teams, and I thought she did that really well with almost having double-digit rebounds, knocked down a good shot at the end, and overall, just really it's fun to watch her growing as she is right now."
On playing against former Buff Aaronette Vonleh: "She's a great, great gal, great player. I'm proud of her and told her, 'I'm always cheering for you, just not when we play each other.' But yeah, she's a great girl."
On playing Baylor coming off of a loss: "I don't know this team, so I don't know what their makeup would be, but any team in any sport, after a tough loss, will come out more focused, more ready, more all of it."
