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The Buffs beat #10 Kansas State on Saturday.
For the second year in a row, the Colorado Buffaloes have dealt a decisive blow to the Kansas State Wildcats.
Last year, the two teams met up in the Second Round of the NCAA Tournament. The 4th-seeded K-State played host to the 5th-seeded Buffs, but were run out of their own gym once JR Payne switched to a 2-3 zone. Colorado had 17 steals — Aaronnette Vonleh had 7 by herself — that the Buffs turned into fast-break points.
Almost a year later, the Buffs have replaced nearly every rotation player and the Wildcats are a top-10 outfit after a 19-1 start to the season. Colorado are still good — 12-6 overall and 3-4 in the Big 12 — but they’re still figuring out how all the pieces fit together. And yet the result was the same, even if the process was a bit different.
Colorado found themselves trailing most of the first half. The jump-shooting Cats found their rhythm early, hitting both middies and threes, while the Buffs took a minute to warm up, even in their home court. But after a couple made threes from Frida Formann and some chaos from Kindyll Wetta, the Buffs found themselves with a 35-31 lead.
From there, the Buffs locked up on defense by taking away the three and forcing K-State into the paint, where a hungry Jade Masogayo was waiting. Things would have been different with All-American forward Ayoka Lee — out with a fracture foot — but Colorado was ruthless in the paint and on the boards.
Masogayo herself had 13 points, 4 blocks and 2 steals, while supporting players like Johanna Teder and Nyamer Diew got involved in the second half scoring.
The Buffs may be turning a corner after a difficult start to the conference schedule. Their four losses were all tough games: road losses to West Virginia, TCU and Baylor — all of whom were ranked in this week’s poll — and another close loss at Cincinnati.
Now the schedule lightens up as the Buffs’ play the BYUs and Houstons of the conference, with only a couple difficult matchups at Utah and at home against Baylor. If the Buffs are going to make a run for the NCAA Tournament, it would have to start now.
by Sam Metivier
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