Senior guard, Lexy Kresl looks to find a teammate during practice. (Allie Greenwood/CU Independent)
This is the final installment of CUIndependent.com’s 2014-15 basketball preview blowout. So far, Tommy Wood has profiled Colorado’s guards and coaching staff. Alissa Noe previewed the Buffs’ forwards and the opener against Drexel. Sam Routhier previewed the women’s guards, forwards and coaches.
When asked last week how she would describe her team in one word, Colorado women’s basketball head coach Linda Lappe went with “solid.”
“I would probably say that for us to be successful, we’re going to have to be solid.”
Lappe’s team description also reflects the level of opponent that Colorado is tasked with tonight, as the Buffaloes are set to face off with a solid North Dakota team that won the Big Sky Conference last season and appeared in the NCAA Tournament.
Colorado may have impressed in last week’s 90-57 exhibition victory against Division II Colorado State-Pueblo, but North Dakota occupies an entirely separate hemisphere of college basketball than CSU-Pueblo.
“This is the best first game we’ve ever played since I’ve been at Colorado,” Lappe said. “North Dakota is tough. They play hard and they’re a typical mid-west team. They’re big, they’re strong, they’re smart. They’re really going to test us.”
If Colorado wants a shot at the NCAA tournament, they’ll need to hit the ground running and make a statement in this preseason WNIT tournament. While the real make-or-break portion of the schedule this season for Colorado will be Pac-12 conference play, a flawless or near-flawless performance in their non-conference schedule would significantly help Colorado’s chances at an NCAA berth, which would be their first since the 2012-2013 season.
That push for an NCAA Tournament berth starts tonight. A win for the Buffaloes Saturday night would cause them to move on to a quarterfinal matchup in the preseason WNIT on Monday between the winner of the Western Kentucky-Central Arkansas matchup. Even with a loss, Colorado is still guaranteed two more games in the tournament, albeit against fellow first-round losers in the consolation bracket.
Offensively, Colorado will look for another strong performance from senior guard Lexy Kresl, whose nine points in last Saturday’s exhibition all came in the first half off of two three-pointers and a perfect three-for-three shooting performance from the free-throw line. Fellow point guard freshman Brecca Thomas will look to capitalize on her strong 10-point exhibition, although it remains to be seen how much of the floor the untested Thomas will see. Senior guard Jasmine Sborov will presumably start for Colorado at shooting guard, hopefully with a more promising stat line than the one she posted last Saturday with four points on one for seven shooting.
In the frontcourt, junior forward Jamee Swan could be sharing space at the top of the stat sheet with sophomore center Bri Watts, whose 14 points and nine rebounds in last Saturday’s exhibition led the Buffaloes in both categories. Senior forward Jen Reese should certainly be in the mix as well for Colorado, looking to bounce back from a game that saw her finish with eight points, but only after shooting one for seven from the field in the first half. Haley Smith could reprise her role in the starting lineup as well.
Defensively, Colorado will need a strong showing if they hope to dispatch a North Dakota team that averaged 69.2 points-per-game last season. While strong team defense has routinely been a staple for Colorado teams under Linda Lappe, last year’s team disappointed at times on the defensive end.
“I felt that our defense really let us down last year,” Lappe said. “It was one of the things that was always a staple for us and we couldn’t get stops when we wanted to get stops. We weren’t tough enough down the stretch.”
Colorado returns to a WNIT tournament after participating in the postseason WNIT this past March. The Buffaloes managed wins over TCU and Southern Utah in the first two rounds of the tournament before falling to eventual-finalists UTEP in the third round (68-60). UTEP would go on to lose to Rutgers, 56-54, in the championship game.
This is Colorado’s third preseason WNIT appearance. The team’s last appearance goes back to 2001, when they fell to Vanderbilt in the semifinals. Before that, Colorado won the preseason WNIT in 1995 over Arkansas.
Colorado tips off against North Dakota at 6 p.m. Saturday night at the Coors Events Center.
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Sam Routhier at Samuel.Routhier@colorado.edu and follow him on twitter @samrouthier.
