Colorado
11-9, 2-5
Texas
14-7, 3-4
Buffs' Second-Half Lapse Leads To Longhorns' Rout
January 30, 2011 | Women's Basketball
AUSTIN, Texas – Whatever Coach Linda Lappe's halftime message was to her Colorado women's basketball team here Sunday, this wasn't the intended result: Texas, leading by only a point at intermission, opened the second half with a 20-6 run and buried the Buffaloes 67-50 at the Frank Erwin Center.
Dropping back-to-back games in the Big 12 Conference for only the second time this season, CU fell to 2-5 in league play and 11-9 overall. Texas, after opening its Big 12 schedule 0-4, won its third consecutive game and improved to 3-4, 14-7.
"I thought we had a great first half," Lappe said. "I thought our defensive intensity was good. We were getting through screens and putting some pressure on them. I thought in the second half (Texas) came out with a different mindset, a different mentality. They were a lot more aggressive . . .
"I felt offensively we came out flat for the whole game, especially right off of halftime. I thought we had some good shots that we just didn't knock down, and let that affect us for the rest of the half. Texas is a nice team and they got after it in the second half, we just didn't quite have enough.”
The Buffs lost for the sixth straight time this season away from the Coors Events Center and dropped their 23rd straight road game against Big 12 South opponents.
CU senior Brittany Spears set a school record with her 113th consecutive start. She finished with a team-best 16 points, but had to score the Buffs' final nine to reach her total. Spears also hit a pair of three-pointers, becoming the fifth CU player to reach 200 (201) for her career.
Junior Julie Seabrook and sophomore Chucky Jeffery added 10 each for the Buffs, but Seabrook's total included only a free throw in the second half.
Texas was led by freshman Chassidy Fussell's game-high 21. Kathleen Nash added 12 and Yvonne Anderson 10 for the Longhorns, who closed out the Big 12 series with the Buffs holding a 16-4 advantage. Texas defeated CU, which heads for the Pac-12 Conference next season, for the ninth time in Austin.
Despite committing 12 of their 20 turnovers in the first half, the Buffs trailed only 25-24 at intermission and were behind by no more than four points in the first 20 minutes. The single point difference at the break was something of a breakthrough for CU: In their four previous trips here, the Buffs had trailed at the half by an average of 17 points per game.
CU's last lead of the half – and the game, as it turned out – was 24-22, courtesy of a Meagan Malcolm-Peck put-back with 1:09 before intermission.
But the smooth Fussell, the Big 12's leading freshman scorer, canned the second of her three three-pointers to put the Horns back up by a point. The half ended that way – and it was as close as the Buffs would be for the rest of the afternoon.
Lappe said Fussell “did a great job of coming out and getting her shot off and knocking them down. She's got a nice shot, and she's got a great pull up jumper. Stop and pop on a dime, and you don't see that a lot with her accuracy. They did a nice job setting on-ball screens for her, and she came off the on-ball screen ready to score – getting her feet set. She's got a high release. You put a bigger guard on her and she's quick and she's fast. You put a smaller guard on her and she rises above and can shoot over. She can do a lot of different things that cause problems.
When the second half opened, there was Fussell again. She scored nine of Texas' 20 points in the decisive run that quickly increased the Longhorns' lead to double digits and kept them ahead by at least 13 points over the game's final 10 minutes. Their biggest lead was by 23 (64-41) on a basket by Kristen Nash with about 4 minutes remaining.
The Longhorns shot 57 percent from the field in the second half – the best 20-minute percentage by a Buffs opponent this season. CU, meanwhile, shot only 42.3 perecent in the second half and 44.7 for the game.
Texas' eight three-pointers – half of them by Kathleen Nash in the second half – tied a CU opponent seasonal high (Iowa State).
In addition to its 20 turnovers, CU managed only eight assists while Texas was dishing out 19. Plus, the Longhorns committed only 11 turnovers.
Her team's turnovers were both self-inflicted and produced by the Horns, Lappe said: “It was both. They did a nice job of changing up defenses in the first half, trapping on ball screens. We've had trouble handling the ball all season long. I'd like to say 20 turnovers is something new to us, but it's not so far we just have to continue to do a better job handling the ball, making good decisions. We shot it well in the first half, but had 12 first half turnovers, that set the tone a little bit.”
CU has either out-rebounded or equaled its last five Big 12 opponents in that category, and Sunday the Buffs held a 32-27 board advantage. CU was on the plus side in that area only four times during Big 12 play last season.
The Buffs visit Kansas Wednesday night, then return to the Events Center on Sunday, Feb. 6 to play Nebraska (2 p.m.).
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