Game thread- Women's Basketball hosting UCLA- 2:00 MT

[AztecBuff]

So, the Buff women have a matinee today as they try to get their 1st conference win of the year against the Bruins in ~2 hours.

cubuffs.com preview- http://www.cubuffs.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=600&ATCLID=209843443

A little bit about the Bruins from that preview:

"...

ABOUT UCLA: UCLA is 6-9 overall and 2-2 in the Pac-12 Conference. The Bruins climbed back to even in the Pac-12 by defeating Utah 49-46 in Salt Lake City on Jan. 9. Freshman Jordin Canada bounced back from a broken nose suffered a week ago to record 16 points, six rebounds and four assists against the Utes. UCLA’s schedule has been a who’s-who of college women’s basketball, facing six ranked teams including three in the Top 10 in Texas, Notre Dame and UConn. The Bruins average 63.8 points per game on 38 percent from the field. Opponents average 68.3 points per game on 38 percent from the field.

All Pac-12 guard Nirra Fields leads UCLA at 14.6 points, 6.6 rebounds and 2.3 steals per game, but missed the Utah game with an injury. Canada averages 10.3 points per game, ranking second on the squad in scoring and steals (25). Sophomore backcourt mate Kari Korver is UCLA’s top 3-point shooter with 25 on the season and at 39 percent. She averages 10.0 points and 4.2 rebounds an outing. Freshman guard Reece’ Caldwell tops UCLA with 42 assists and averages 6.7 points per contest.

...
"

Television- on Pac 12 Mountain and Southern California networks

Streaming- If your cable/ satellite subscription includes access to the Pac 12 network, should also be available online after login through- http://pac-12.com/live or http://pac-12.com/network/pac-12-los-angeles?DB_LANG=C&DB_OEM_ID=600

Audio- On 760 AM in the Denver area, and evidently should also be available through- http://www.cubuffs.com/mediaPortal/player.dbml?type=live&db_oem_id=600 come game time.

Live stats- Assume will be available through http://www.cubuffs.com/liveStats/liveStats.dbml?DB_LANG=C&DB_OEM_ID=600 come gametime. Edit- direct link to the live stats- http://www.cubuffs.com/liveStats/v2/basketball/index.dbml?GAME_STAT_ID=1702273&db_oem_id=600

 

[jsmilkst]

Ucla's losing record is a little deceptive, as they played a brutal non con, but they are definitely down right now.

 

[AztecBuff]

Game starting soon.

A couple tweets related to this Alumni weekend-

[tweet]554328793251192832[/tweet]

[tweet]554369370546114560[/tweet]

 

[AztecBuff]

Telecast has begun. Notes from announcers' intro comments:

Unknown yet whether UCLA star Nirra Fields who, as noted in the OP, missed last game due to a bad ankle, will play today or not. Edit- they're now saying she will be playing, but is not part of the starting line-up.

Buff's beat the Bruins 3 times last year.

 

[AztecBuff]

Game started.

UCLA the 4th (at least) straight team employing the full-court press against the Buffs. Buffs not making many shots, and already 3 turnovers. 12-5 UCLA at the 1st media timeout.

 

[AztecBuff]

Another ugly start- now 19-5 UCLA. Quick Buff timeout. Bruins 3-4 from 3 already.

 

[goalline]

21-9. UCLA shooting very hot. Full court press seems to be preventing the Buffs from settling down.

 

[AztecBuff]

23-9 at media timeout with ~12 minutes left in the half.

 

[goalline]

37-19 with 7:30 left. UCLA keeps hitting everything it seems.

 

[AztecBuff]

Buffs start looking better late in the half and get hot from 3 (Kresl with 4 made already). UCLA leads 50-41 at the half. (UCLA already with more points than in their whole game against Utah on Friday.)

 

[goalline]

The last four minutes of the half were much better. CU trails 50-41. Reese hit several good shots. Man to man defense needs to improve. Some players having trouble getting through traffic and staying with their assignments.

 

[AztecBuff]

Buffs making it a game early in the 2nd with some hot shooting, esp. with ~15 foot jumpers. 54-49 UCLA. TO UCLA

 

[AztecBuff]

Buffs coming back strong-56-55 UCLA at the media timeout. ~16 minutes left in the game.

Congrats to Jen Reese- just went over 1,000 points in her Buff career.

 

[goalline]

Reese just scored 1000 career pts. Congrats. Aztec beat me to it. [emoji1]

 

[AztecBuff]

64-62 Bruins with ~12 minutes left. Media timeout.

 

[AztecBuff]

Still anyone's game- 74-73 UCLA at media timeout- 7:22 left. The good- Buff's half court offense flowing well, and they're hot from the outside. Bad- Making quite a few turnovers against UCLA's press, and starting to give up too many 2nd and 3rd chance points off UCLA offensive rebounds.

 

[AztecBuff]

83-78 UCLA at last media timeout; Buff going to the line for 2 free throws. Last UCLA possession- Buffs gave up an offensive board on a missed free throw- UCLA hits a 3 with the extra possession.

 

[buffgal]

Reese has a career high with 28 points at the 2:07 mark. Hope her team can help her with a win. Down 82-85

 

[buffgal]

Jen is feeling it. Buffs down 1 point now.

 

[AztecBuff]

Offensive foul on Swan on a fast break where she makes the layup could be the killer for the Buffs' chances. 87-84 UCLA, UCLA on the line. 15 seconds left.

 

[buffgal]

Buffs lose this one. Can't make 5 points in .3 seconds. Tough loss. Could have been theirs.

 

[AztecBuff]

And, Buffs end up losing 90 -84. Still a nice character comeback for the Buffs after being down by as much as 20-21 in the 1st half. Proud of the way they kept fighting.

They do need to start off quicker- they always seem to get WAY down in the score and offense sputters for the first 5-10 minutes of games.

 

[90sBuff]

At least they tried to come back from a huge deficit. They made it close at the end.

I still have to begin to think we will have a new coach this off-season. We're now 7-8 and looking like we won't be able to defend the home court. The UCLA game showed some fight, but it's just not enough.

One question- isn't Ceal Barry the AD over women's sports? Hopefully RG makes the evaluation. So tired of so many excuses for losing. This was another hire by the previous AD. RG seems to have a bigger vision for winning and I'd be curious to know if he takes action at the end of the season.

 

[jsmilkst]

At least they tried to come back from a huge deficit. They made it close at the end.

I still have to begin to think we will have a new coach this off-season. We're now 7-8 and looking like we won't be able to defend the home court. The UCLA game showed some fight, but it's just not enough.

One question- isn't Ceal Barry the AD over women's sports? Hopefully RG makes the evaluation. So tired of so many excuses for losing. This was another hire by the previous AD. RG seems to have a bigger vision for winning and I'd be curious to know if he takes action at the end of the season.

Still too early. Same coach who put us top 25 for basically a whole season 2 years ago. This kind of reactionary firing is not productive. If she can't turn next year's great looking recruiting class into competitors, then maybe you look at it, but come on.

 

[goalline]

Still too early. Same coach who put us top 25 for basically a whole season 2 years ago. This kind of reactionary firing is not productive. If she can't turn next year's great looking recruiting class into competitors, then maybe you look at it, but come on.

This. Rumors she has lost the team are way off based on today's game.

Defense needs some work. Too many times players were left open off of picks and standard movement. Lots of open looks for UCLA. Reese was fantastic today though.

 

[90sBuff]

So you're saying we should wait for a new class of freshmen who are in currently in high school to come and turn around the program? Why not the players that should have been coached up already?

The argument about the top 25 is exactly why a change might be needed. After getting ranked two seasons ago with Chucky Jeffrey, the team has sputtered and failed. We are far far off from the Top 25 now.

Still too early. Same coach who put us top 25 for basically a whole season 2 years ago. This kind of reactionary firing is not productive. If she can't turn next year's great looking recruiting class into competitors, then maybe you look at it, but come on.

 

[AztecBuff]

Just my “two cents worth”, but I think it’s way too early to think of replacing Coach Lappe. In general, I think this firing a coach to fire a coach after a year or two of losing is not the best way to operate, especially on teams in tough conferences.


Just an example (of course only one, so not necessarily a hard proof, but could be indicative of a fact)- The Pac 12’s strongest sports conference for team sports is probably women’s volleyball (10 teams in the NCAA tournament, 9 teams in the final Top 25 pole). One aspect of that conference- EVERY coach has been around at least 5 years. (Only UCLA’s Coach Seely has been at his school shorter than Coach Kritza, who’s been with the Buffs 6 years.) Year to year, ~ half of those coaches are suffering losing records in conference, in some cases REALLY bad losing records (1-19, 0-20). Are colleges going to be consistently firing these coaches because of losing years? If they are, how wise is that when, if you look at the overall conference landscape, you ARE in the best conference, NOT firing coaches has worked. And, even the coaches with the REALLY bad years seem to come back and also have very good seasons (see my OSU example below) due to the ebb and flow of play and quality of players, mainly from recruiting and injuries.


I don’t think you should fire a coach unless at least two of the following three are present for a couple years- (a) team continually losing a lot (with injuries having to be factored into results), (b) team not playing hard (often described as “coach has lost the team”) and/ or (c) recruiting going bad. In this case, I’d say losing is the only (although of course it’s a biggie) of the three going somewhat bad right now:


1) Re the losing, I think it’s almost always going to be hard for any but the premier programs to function great when the team’s best player gets hurt, especially in the sports (basketball, volleyball, etc.) with smaller rosters and less players on the court at one time. With Ms. Roberson out, although we always hope and never know for sure how bad an injury might hurt the team, so far her loss has been hard for the Buffs to handle. (It’s easy to think that, if the Buffs lose a tight game like they did today, they probably would/ could have won easily with her playing.) Also, of course, I want to point out the Pac 12 isn’t the “conference of chumps”, it’s the “Conference of Champions”, so it’s easy to get into a losing streak and still not be a bad team. (For example, the UCLA team the Buffs lost to today had the #1 ranked recruiting class in the country, and was only 2-2 in conference going into this game, and still hasn't faced Stanford or Cal.)

On the bright side, with small roster sports, it’s also possible to come back quickly (vs. a sport like football or soccer with bigger rosters) either year to year or, if teams “find something”, even within the same year. As a big volleyball fan (which with 6 players on the court at one time and typically 8-9 players having a role each game/ match, is similar to basketball), the example that comes up immediately- Oregon State (OSU) volleyball in 2013 was 0-20 in the Pac 12, and that was with a much older and experienced coach (former Olympic coach, 10 years at Oregon State) than Coach Lappe, so there would be less reason to be patient with OSU’s coach than an up and coming coach like Lappe. This year, OSU ended up ranked #23 in the country and made it to volleyball’s “Sweet 16”.


2) Re playing hard or giving up, I have not seen ANY evidence that that’s an issue with the Buffs.


3) Re recruiting, as has been mentioned in other threads, the Buffs have one of their strongest rated classes in MANY years coming in for next season. (I don’t know Buff’s history in WBB that well- don’t know when there was a stronger class? Assume maybe the early 2000’s?) So, the future looks like it could be bright. I would say patience may be needed next year, as I personally don’t think you can necessarily rely that heavily on freshmen to be difference makers in their 1st year, although of course you never know. (In the OSU volleyball example I gave above, their turnaround WAS led offensively by a freshman.)


I also want to say, of course, it’s way too early for this season to be written off, and hopefully the Buffs will keep playing hard, find some ways to improve their game, and get some wins the rest of the year. Today’s game showed they can play with a talented (albeit young) team like UCLA, and they should gain confidence from that.

 

[buffgal]

I also think Lappe is under contract, but I don't know how many years. Does CU have the money to buy her out? No.

I'm still not giving up on Lappe or the team. There was no quit in this team today. Lappe used her regular players most of the game and they showed they had spunk and determination. They led at times down the stretch. The offensive foul on Swan was key. If she had made the bucket, it was very easily a W.

I remember both last season and this season people wanted Coach Kritzka fired. Look what she has done with volleyball.

 

[buffgal]

So you're saying we should wait for a new class of freshmen who are in currently in high school to come and turn around the program? Why not the players that should have been coached up already?

The argument about the top 25 is exactly why a change might be needed. After getting ranked two seasons ago with Chucky Jeffrey, the team has sputtered and failed. We are far far off from the Top 25 now.

Chucky is now playing professional basketball in Europe. She was a game changer as were the Wilson twins.

Have you been around long enough to remember Brittany Spears or the team Lappe inherited and what she did with them her first year. Chucky didn't like the discipline Lappe requires. Spears was quoted as saying she had not learned to play defense under KMM. Had she had 4 years under Lappe, she would be playing professional basketball. Lappe had Julie Seabrook for, I believe, two years and she plays professional basketball in Europe. Tell me Lappe hasn't produced successful players.

 

[buff190]

I can be an impatient person and I don't think it's time to get rid of Lappe. With a very good class coming in next year, we definitely should see what she can do with them on the team before we get too restless.

Hopefully we can continue to compete each game this season and have something to build on for next year. And with Roberson coming back healthy, I like our team for next season. Point guard position needs to get better though.