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The Buffs just couldn’t finish the job
The Colorado Buffaloes’ Pac-12 tournament run has come to an end after only two days, falling to the Oregon State Beavers by a score of 79-85 in a double overtime nail-biter.
After going 0-2 against the Beavs in the regular season, the Buffs got tantalizingly close to finally beating their now former Pac-12 rival. Despite leading for 40:13 minutes of the game, Colorado just couldn’t get the job done.
CU opened the game up by roaring out to a 17-10 lead to end the first quarter, fully maintaining the momentum they’d picked up during their clobbering of the Oregon Ducks on Wednesday. The Buffs shot 8-17 on field goal attempts in the first, holding the Beavers to only 5 makes from the field in the process.
To start the second quarter, Colorado reverted to their streaky-shooting of February. The Buffs became ice cold on the offensive side of the floor, making only 2 of their 12 attempts from the field and got burned off the boards.
Oregon State star forward Raegan Beers came to life in the second, outmuscling the Buffs and getting quite literally whatever she wanted inside the paint. Beers finished the quarter with 16 of OSU’s 22 points, shooting 8 of 11 on field goals and snagging 7 boards in the process. Due to Beers being unstoppable inside and Colorado’s bad shooting, the Beavs managed to cut Colorado lead down to 25-22 going into halftime.
Oregon State came back from the break and took an immediate 27-25 lead on a 5-0 run. The Buffs went shot for shot with OSU for the first five minutes of the third quarter, but kicked things into high gear in the latter half, going on a 10-3 run to close the period.
That run was due largely to two forced Beavers turnovers and Oregon State missing some key open shots. At the end of the third, Colorado headed to the 4th quarter up 45-36, looking to finally exact their revenge on the Beavs.
The Buffs started the fourth on a high note, as Frida Formann hit a three-pointer to extend CU’s lead to 12 points. Up 50-38, Colorado began unraveling at the seams. With their backs against the wall, Oregon State simply out-hustled the Buffs. OSU went on a 13-0 run to take a one point lead, fueled by four forced Buffaloes turnovers.
A subsequent layup and made three-throw from Aaronette Vonleh gave the Buffs a two point lead with 1:58 to play, but Frida Formann accidentally fouled Timea Gardiner, which put the Beavers into the bonus. Gardiner would hit both her shots from the charity stripe and tie the game with 1:08 to play.
Colorado got the ball back with :21 seconds left and no timeouts, scored tied at 53, but a Jaylyn Sherrod pull-up jumper fell just a bit short. Despite the Buffs having a firm stranglehold on the game most the vast majority of regulation, we were going to overtime.
CU opened the extra period by ripping off an immediate 5-0, courtesy of a Jaylyn Sherrod layup and Frida Formann three-pointer, but they began to cool off after that. A couple of poorly timed turnovers allowed OSU to rip off a 7-1 run, which as finally ended when Sherrod hit a driving layup.
With Colorado up by 1 point with :31 seconds to play, Oregon State inbounded the ball trying to seal the deal. The rock eventually found its way to the hands of Dominika Paurova in the corner, who drilled an open three-pointer to put the Beavers up 63-61 with :22 seconds left of overtime.
With less than the shot-clock left, Colorado had to find a way to send the game to a second OT period. Sherrod inbounded the ball, chewed a bit of clock and drove all the way up the paint, who set up and hit a five foot jumper over two OSU players, sending the game into 2OT.
The Buffs once again got off to a great start in 2OT, as Aaronette Vonleh scored 4 quick points to give Colorado the lead. Unfortunately, that’s pretty much where the good things end. Up one, with 3:36 to play, Vonleh picked up her fifth foul going up for an offensive board and fouled out of the game.
Without Vonleh, Colorado hung in for a bit, trailing by only one point with 2:04 to play, but Oregon State took advantage of the Buffs’ small size and scored four quick points from inside. At that point, the game was pretty much over.
The final two minutes of 2OT turned into a foul-fest, where CU was intentionally fouling OSU and praying for them to miss their freebies, which didn’t happen. The Beavers went 11 for 11 from the stripe down the stretch, cementing Colorado’s defeat.
Two Buffaloes scored 20 points in Thursday’s game, being Jaylyn Sherrod (23 points) and Aaronette Vonleh (20 points). Frida Formann got so close to cracking the 20 point barrier, but fell just shot with 19. Quay Miller had a quiet scoring game, but managed to snag 8 huge rebounds over Beers in pivotal moments.
After Thursday’s loss, the Buffs can do nothing but wait and see what comes next. They’ve already punched their ticket to the tournament, but it’s a coin flip chance on if they’ll get to host games in Boulder. Both JR Payne, her team Colorado fans all will be anxiously waiting until March 17th, when the selection committee will announce who and where the Buffs will play two weekends from now.
by RylandScholes
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