Haley Smith returns to Seattle for her final Pac-12 Tournament.
Photo by: CUBuffs.com
Brooks: Quick Rematch With WSU A Good Opportunity For CU Women
March 01, 2017 | Women's Basketball, B.G. Brooks
Buffs face Cougars in Thursday’s opening round of Pac-12 Tournament
BOULDER – There are two ways to look at the Colorado women's basketball team's first-round match up with Washington State in the Pac-12 Conference Tournament – and both seem favorable for the Buffaloes.
First, since the Buffs concluded the regular season against the Cougars only last Saturday the scouting report for Thursday's game (6 p.m. MST, Pac-12 Networks, AM 1190 KVCU) likely will be the shortest of the season – more of a CU to-do list than a briefing on Wazzu.
Second, since the Buffs fizzled in most facets of their 67-56 loss in Pullman – they fell behind 16-0, never led, shot 29 percent from the field, 47 percent from the free throw line, were outrebounded by 10 and managed only 7 assists – one would think atonement would be fairly high on everyone's priority list.
With her first regular season as CU's coach behind her and her first Pac-12 tourney a day away, JR Payne agreed that preparation for the Cougars would be mostly about the Buffs.
"It's about trying to figure out what we did well, what we didn't do well and how we can do better," she said before the on-court prep began on Monday. "The focus is more on our team; we already know them unless they drastically change their identity in two days – which is unlikely to happen."
This is the point in a basketball season when there are no secrets. Oh, there can be a need to revisit scouting reports; if CU's first-round draw was Southern California or UCLA – the Buffs' conference-opening opponents in January – Payne's staff would be in research/review mode.
BUT PERSONNEL AND TEAM TENDENCIES, strengths, weaknesses and philosophies usually don't change from January to March. CU knows WSU and vice versa, with each aware of why their regular-season games were split (the Buffs won 70-58 in Boulder).
I asked senior Haley Smith about seeing the Cougars again so soon after that disappointing loss and if lessons from last weekend might come into play on Thursday.
"Definitely," she said. "But I think it's going to be big for Washington State as well . . . (CU's lesson) is definitely not to take any part of the game for granted. No one is going to give it to you. Going into the Pac-12 tournament, into postseason play, it's vitally important. There's not going to be an easy game for any team throughout the weekend."
Smith, from nearby Sammamish, Wash., spent many nights and afternoons as a kid in Seattle's KeyArena – the site of the Pac-12 event – watching pro hoops. Returning there for the final time in her CU career makes this trip home special as well as emotional.
"It's always special but this one is a little bit different," she said. "I'm really excited."
Smith agreed that concentrating on WSU's personnel takes a back seat to making sure the Buffs can reboot.
"We'll be able to focus on us and I'm assuming that practice this week is going to be focused on Colorado and what we need to be doing – the things we need to work on regardless of who the opponent is," she said.
"It's obviously hard going into a tournament like this because there's a lot of different teams and who we might be playing. Scouting is not as important as making sure your team is in a good spot."
CU's regular season-ending road trip to Washington produced a pair of losses – No. 11 UW won in a 79-46 blowout two nights earlier – and made the Buffs (15-14, 5-13) the No. 10 seed for the postseason tournament. The Cougars (11-18, 6-12) earned the No. 7 seed. Thursday's winner faces No. 2 seed Stanford, which has a first-round bye, on Friday night.
In their two regular-season meetings with the Cougars the Buffs faced double-digit deficits, trailing by 14 points in the third quarter of their win in Boulder and by 16 to start their loss in Pullman. They rallied to win by 12 in the first meeting and pulled to within three points twice before falling.
The upside for the Buffs: they know rallies are possible. The upside for the Cougars: they know they're capable of fashioning a big lead and in at least one case holding it.
A KEY ELEMENT ON THURSDAY will be turnovers. In the two regular-season games, CU forced an astounding 54 turnovers – 27 in each game. In Boulder the Buffs scored 34 points off of the Cougars' miscues but in Pullman the Buffs managed just 21 points off of the 27 errors. CU missed opportunity upon opportunity, many of them layups.
Said Payne: "You fix those two things (missed layups, missed free throws) and you have a much better outcome I think."
Obviously, Payne won't hesitate to use the smaller lineup and pressure defense that contributed to turning over Wazzu so handily. But will Wazzu handle it better or worse on a neutral court?
It's one of the issues that will be resolved Thursday but not one that's as vital to Payne as her team's overall energy level. The Buffs' 16-0 deficit to open last Saturday's loss in Pullman speaks mostly to their lethargy.
"There wasn't a lot of energy, a lot of enthusiasm," noted Smith, "but when we flipped that around things began to look up for us."
Payne doesn't want the Buffs to need that kind of flip again.
"We just weren't ready to play . . . I should say we weren't as ready as we needed to be to play that game," she said. "You've got to be ready to go no matter who you're playing, when you're playing, where you're playing. None of that can matter; you've got to be ready to lace 'em up and clearly we weren't."
Payne added that energy should be "just intrinsic. Energy – emotional, physical, excitement, enthusiasm – all the things that have nothing really to do with basketball or scheming or any of that stuff. I just want to see them play their hearts out, because when we do that we play really well."
If they show up energized, the Buffs should advance, which they've done in three of the previous four tournaments (CU is 3-1 in the first round, 5-5 overall). Show up any other way – in other words, don't show up – and Payne's first Pac-12 experience becomes one-and-done.
Contact: BG.Brooks@Colorado.EDU
First, since the Buffs concluded the regular season against the Cougars only last Saturday the scouting report for Thursday's game (6 p.m. MST, Pac-12 Networks, AM 1190 KVCU) likely will be the shortest of the season – more of a CU to-do list than a briefing on Wazzu.
Second, since the Buffs fizzled in most facets of their 67-56 loss in Pullman – they fell behind 16-0, never led, shot 29 percent from the field, 47 percent from the free throw line, were outrebounded by 10 and managed only 7 assists – one would think atonement would be fairly high on everyone's priority list.
With her first regular season as CU's coach behind her and her first Pac-12 tourney a day away, JR Payne agreed that preparation for the Cougars would be mostly about the Buffs.
"It's about trying to figure out what we did well, what we didn't do well and how we can do better," she said before the on-court prep began on Monday. "The focus is more on our team; we already know them unless they drastically change their identity in two days – which is unlikely to happen."
This is the point in a basketball season when there are no secrets. Oh, there can be a need to revisit scouting reports; if CU's first-round draw was Southern California or UCLA – the Buffs' conference-opening opponents in January – Payne's staff would be in research/review mode.
BUT PERSONNEL AND TEAM TENDENCIES, strengths, weaknesses and philosophies usually don't change from January to March. CU knows WSU and vice versa, with each aware of why their regular-season games were split (the Buffs won 70-58 in Boulder).
I asked senior Haley Smith about seeing the Cougars again so soon after that disappointing loss and if lessons from last weekend might come into play on Thursday.
"Definitely," she said. "But I think it's going to be big for Washington State as well . . . (CU's lesson) is definitely not to take any part of the game for granted. No one is going to give it to you. Going into the Pac-12 tournament, into postseason play, it's vitally important. There's not going to be an easy game for any team throughout the weekend."
Smith, from nearby Sammamish, Wash., spent many nights and afternoons as a kid in Seattle's KeyArena – the site of the Pac-12 event – watching pro hoops. Returning there for the final time in her CU career makes this trip home special as well as emotional.
"It's always special but this one is a little bit different," she said. "I'm really excited."
Smith agreed that concentrating on WSU's personnel takes a back seat to making sure the Buffs can reboot.
"We'll be able to focus on us and I'm assuming that practice this week is going to be focused on Colorado and what we need to be doing – the things we need to work on regardless of who the opponent is," she said.
"It's obviously hard going into a tournament like this because there's a lot of different teams and who we might be playing. Scouting is not as important as making sure your team is in a good spot."
CU's regular season-ending road trip to Washington produced a pair of losses – No. 11 UW won in a 79-46 blowout two nights earlier – and made the Buffs (15-14, 5-13) the No. 10 seed for the postseason tournament. The Cougars (11-18, 6-12) earned the No. 7 seed. Thursday's winner faces No. 2 seed Stanford, which has a first-round bye, on Friday night.
In their two regular-season meetings with the Cougars the Buffs faced double-digit deficits, trailing by 14 points in the third quarter of their win in Boulder and by 16 to start their loss in Pullman. They rallied to win by 12 in the first meeting and pulled to within three points twice before falling.
The upside for the Buffs: they know rallies are possible. The upside for the Cougars: they know they're capable of fashioning a big lead and in at least one case holding it.
A KEY ELEMENT ON THURSDAY will be turnovers. In the two regular-season games, CU forced an astounding 54 turnovers – 27 in each game. In Boulder the Buffs scored 34 points off of the Cougars' miscues but in Pullman the Buffs managed just 21 points off of the 27 errors. CU missed opportunity upon opportunity, many of them layups.
Said Payne: "You fix those two things (missed layups, missed free throws) and you have a much better outcome I think."
Obviously, Payne won't hesitate to use the smaller lineup and pressure defense that contributed to turning over Wazzu so handily. But will Wazzu handle it better or worse on a neutral court?
It's one of the issues that will be resolved Thursday but not one that's as vital to Payne as her team's overall energy level. The Buffs' 16-0 deficit to open last Saturday's loss in Pullman speaks mostly to their lethargy.
"There wasn't a lot of energy, a lot of enthusiasm," noted Smith, "but when we flipped that around things began to look up for us."
Payne doesn't want the Buffs to need that kind of flip again.
"We just weren't ready to play . . . I should say we weren't as ready as we needed to be to play that game," she said. "You've got to be ready to go no matter who you're playing, when you're playing, where you're playing. None of that can matter; you've got to be ready to lace 'em up and clearly we weren't."
Payne added that energy should be "just intrinsic. Energy – emotional, physical, excitement, enthusiasm – all the things that have nothing really to do with basketball or scheming or any of that stuff. I just want to see them play their hearts out, because when we do that we play really well."
If they show up energized, the Buffs should advance, which they've done in three of the previous four tournaments (CU is 3-1 in the first round, 5-5 overall). Show up any other way – in other words, don't show up – and Payne's first Pac-12 experience becomes one-and-done.
Contact: BG.Brooks@Colorado.EDU
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