Contact CU Independent Sports Writer Jake Mauff at jacob.mauff@colorado.edu
The Colorado Buffaloes (6-20) fell to the No. 15 Stanford Cardinal, 80-49. Colorado seems destined to the basement of the Pac-12, having only collected one win in 15 tries.
At one point in the second quarter, the Buffs were down 33-17. While things looked bleak, the team ended the half strong. Stanford’s lead was cut to eight points at the end of the half. There was some hope of Colorado comeback.
Well, that might be inaccurate, at least to the players.
“Tonight, we didn’t even think that we could win,” freshman guard Kennedy Leonard said. “It wasn’t just one person; it was everyone across the board. No one had the mentality to win this game.”
It’s becoming an eerie repeated story for the Buffs. The offense continues to have problems, but against Stanford these problems were magnified. Only a third of the team’s shots went in.
Five players on the team failed to convert a single one of their field goal attempts while sophomore center Zoe Correal didn’t take a shot.
That’s five players with zero points and freshman guard Alexis Robinson only scored two points off of free throws. She took nine shots and missed all of them.
Senior center Jamee Swan scored more than half of the team’s points, tallying 25 on the night. She made nine of her 10 shots. The rest of the team made ten attempts on 47 tries.
Swan picked up her second foul early in the second quarter and was pulled out to avoid further trouble. Colorado just couldn’t get the offense going without Swan on the court. With the season winding down, it’ll be important to observe how the team functions while Swan’s on the bench.
“Knowing it was my last weekend for me, I walked out on the court and it finally hit me that this is my last chance to play in the Coors Events Center,” Swan said. “I wanted to prove that even though I haven’t had the season that I wished for that I could turn it around and make a difference.”
The team as a whole had trouble getting to the line throughout the night. Swan was, once again, the only person that was able to consistently perform this task. She sunk seven of her 10 attempts from the line, while the rest of the team only went four other times.
The only person to come close to Swan was Leonard. She had 13 points and was the only other Buffalo to score in double digits.
Stanford had quite the opposite night.The Cardinal ended things with a 49.1 percent conversion rate from the floor. The shot 89.5 percent from the charity stripe.
The game featured a balanced attack from Stanford. Four players finished in double digits while two others were knocking on the door. Sophomore guard Brittany McPhee led the charge with 16 points and seven rebounds.
Rebounding has also been a problem of late for the Buffs. They were outmatched on the glass by nine rebounds. Rebounds help a team control the pace of the game, and Colorado needed help establishing any form of offense consistency.
“This was the first game where I thought we didn’t play very hard,” head coach Linda Lappe said. “We’ve got to continue to fight, and that’s our only choice. These losses don’t feel really good, since no one gave their best, including myself.”
The Buffs will look to turn it around in their last home game of the season against the California Golden Bears on Sunday. Tipoff is scheduled for noon (MST) from the Coors Event Center.
