Colorado
6-2
Iowa
7-2
Colorado Iced By No. 22/19 Iowa
December 07, 2014 | Women's Basketball
IOWA CITY, Iowa – No one expects the University of Colorado to maintain an 80-point offensive average, especially against stiffer competition.
But, for the Buffaloes, defense is expected. Unfortunately, when Colorado cooled for the first time this year, the defense couldn't come to the rescue against a ranked opponent on the road.
Despite a career afternoon from senior Jasmine Sborov, Colorado endured its lowest offensive output of the season and struggled to make key stops when they were needed as No. 22/19 Iowa defeated the Buffaloes 78-63 Sunday afternoon at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
Sborov led Colorado (6-2) with career-highs in points (17) and rebounds (12) for her second career double-double.
"Defensively, we have to get tougher," head coach Linda Lappe said. "We can't give up 78 points on the road and expect to win."
The Buffaloes did some things well and showed they could play toe-to-toe with the Hawkeyes. CU dominated on the boards by a count of 53-36; and 23 offensive rebounds led to some extra possessions and trips to the foul line that kept the Buffaloes close.
However, persistent foul trouble, and key lapses at the beginning of the first half, and start of the second, allowed Iowa (7-2) to build a double-digit lead and maintain that margin to stay unbeaten at home in 2014 (6-0).
"We weren't getting stops when we needed to," Sborov said. "Coming into a road game you want to throw the first punch and keep on going. I don't think we did a great job of that. At times we did, and the effort there – we fought hard – but we weren't consistent enough."
Haley Smith, coming off a 24-point performance, looked to get on track early once again hitting two of her first three shots as CU took a 6-4 lead. But she picked up two fouls in six seconds just one minute later forcing the Buffaloes to go to their bench early. She would be limited to eight points hitting just 4-of-12 from the field.
Melissa Dixon, who led Iowa with a game-high 23 points, hit her first of five 3-pointers to spark a 6-0 Hawkeyes run and a 10-6 lead.
Sborov, who crashed the boards hard from the beginning, answered with a 6-0 run of her own. First she got a rebound off her own free throw miss and eased in for a layup to end Iowa's run. Then the senior put the Buffaloes up 12-10 as she took a handoff from Zoe Beard-Fails at the elbow and scored in traffic, converting on a 3-point play.
Sborov crashed the boards with a purpose stating "it was my main focus, a mindset to play solid defense and let the offense come to me." That resulted in a career-high six field goals, on just 10 attempts.
The game pace picked up from there. After Iowa retook the lead, Colorado briefly took it back when freshman Alina Hartmann hit a 3-pointer in transition. The Hawkeyes responded with an almost identical shot of their own. Dixon's second 3-pointer was followed by one from Ally Disterhoft which sparked a 10-2 run that gave Iowa a 24-17 edge.
Colorado's ability to get offensive rebounds extended possessions that allowed the Buffaloes to chisel away at the Hawkeyes. Beard-Fails converted a 3-point play to cut the lead to four. Sborov was then fouled on another offensive rebound and hit two free throws to trim Iowa's lead to 25-23.
After a Disterhoft basket and Iowa with the ball after a foul, Lexy Kresl stole the ball from Claire Till and found Lauren Huggins for a transition 3-pointer that cut the Iowa lead to 27-26 with 3:39 left.
Dixon's third 3-pointer sparked an 8-2 run for Iowa to end the half. Iowa point guard Samantha Logic, who had been held scoreless, secured an offensive rebound and banked in a short jumper at the buzzer for a 35-28 Iowa lead.
Iowa kept rolling early in the second half. The Hawkeyes hit 4-of-7 out of the gate and even had the ball bounce their way a few times. Disterhoft missed a free throw but Whitney Jennings was able to get the rare offensive rebound and put it in for a double-digit Iowa lead.
Smith scored her first basket since early in the second half to make it a 47-38 game. The Buffaloes were able to force a Jennings miss, but during a mad scramble for the rebound, Till corralled the ball from her knees and pitched out to Dixon for her fourth 3-pointer as the lead quickly went back to double-digits.
"Give Iowa a lot of credit," Lappe said. "I thought their spurt to end the first half and at the beginning of the second half was the difference in the game. We didn't come out at halftime like we needed to, especially on the defensive end and rebounding the basketball. They were able to take advantage of that and we were playing down 10-12 for most of the second half."
Jen Reese scored all 14 of her points in the second half. Even when it seemed she was about to get going, scoring on Colorado's first two second half possessions, she was hit with two quick fouls that gave her four total with nearly 18 minutes remaining.
Iowa built its lead to 15 at 59-44 with 8:39 left, but the Buffaloes put up a good fight to end the game. Reese reentered and scored six straight for Colorado to cut the Hawkeye lead to 61-52. But by this time, with nearly everyone in some sort of foul trouble, Iowa attacked. Back-to-back layups by Dixon and Kali Peschel had Iowa running back out to an 18-point advantage with 4:31 left.
To their credit, the Buffaloes never quit. Down 72-54, Colorado began to press. The Buffaloes forced two turnovers helping a 9-0 run led by five straight from Sborov. Iowa figured out the press and hit free throws for the final margin.
"I do like the fight of our team," Lappe said. "This was our first real road test. A lot of good things to take out of it, a lot of things to learn from and we'll take it from here."
Colorado returns to action Friday, Dec. 12, as the Buffaloes travel to former Big Eight/Big 12 rival Missouri for a 6 p.m. MST game in Columbia, Mo.
