Colorado’s Aaronette Vonleh, center, tries to dribble past the UCLA defense during a women’s basketball game at Pauley Pavilion in Los Angeles on Monday, Feb. 26, 2024. (University of Colorado Athletics)
Fast break
Why the Buffs lost: Despite playing good defense all night, the Buffs could never sustain any rhythm offensively. They finished with a season low in points and their lowest field goal percentage (.286) in over a year.
Three stars:
1. UCLA’s Kiki Rice: The Bruins’ point guard had a game-high 20 points, along with nine rebounds, four assists, three blocks and two steals.
2. UCLA’s Charisma Osborne: Finished with 14 points, including a massive 3-pointer with 88 seconds to play.
3. CU’s Jaylyn Sherrod: Led the Buffs with 10 points and seven rebounds. She also had four assists and four steals.
Up next: CU returns home to host Washington on Thursday at 7 p.m. (Pac-12 Network).
LOS ANGELES – A four-game string against ranked opponents gave the Colorado women’s basketball team an opportunity to make a statement and a move in the Pac-12 standings.
The Buffaloes did, but it wasn’t the statement or the move they had hoped to make.
No. 13-ranked CU rallied twice on Monday night, but sputtered late in falling to No. 8 UCLA in a defensive battle 53-45 at Pauley Pavilion.
CU (20-7, 10-6 Pac-12) has lost four consecutive games. Although all four were against top 20 teams, the losing streak has taken CU from the top of the standings to a tie for fifth place with two games to play.
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“Our only thought always is to figure things out,” CU head coach JR Payne said. “Put your head down and work and figure out how we can be better. That’s really the only solution.
“We have great players, we have great coaches, we have good all-around. We’ve just got to be able to really put our heads down and figure out what’s not working and make some adjustments and get it working again.”
On Monday, it was the offense that wasn’t working.
In an 87-81 loss to No. 7 USC on Friday, the Buffs were sensational on offense and lackluster on defense.
“Tonight was the exact opposite,” Payne said.
It was the Buffs’ lowest scoring game and lowest field goal percentage (.286) since Feb. 19, 2023, in a 61-42 loss at Arizona.
The Buffs opened Monday by missing their first nine shots. They closed the game by missing their last 10. In between, they went 16-of-37 (.432), but those opening and closing stretches were significant.
“Definitely have to figure out how to be more consistent at this time of the year even against really great teams,” Payne said. “We’ve got to be able to get stops and scores consistently on the same night.”
The bad start put the Buffs in a 17-7 hole at the end of the first quarter. They rallied to score the first eight points of the second quarter – including back-to-back 3-pointers by Frida Formann – to pull within 17-15, but UCLA responded with a 10-0 surge to take its biggest lead of the night, 27-15.
Down 29-19 at the half, the Buffs stormed out of the locker room with a 13-2 run to take its first and only lead, 32-31. Quay Miller had all nine of her points in that run.
The Bruins, however, responded with a 13-3 run to bump the lead back to nine early in the fourth quarter.
CU pulled within 46-43 with 5:22 to go, but neither team could hit a shot after that. UCLA, however, snapped a 6-minute, 14-second scoring drought (missing 11 straight shots) with a 3-pointer by Charisma Osborne with 1:28 to go that made it 49-43. The Bruins then scored the last four points to seal the win.
“Definitely we are a resilient group,” Payne said of the Buffs’ rallies. “No matter what, no matter when, no matter where, we’re going to compete and fight and continue to play hard and things like that. But again, it’s frustrating. … It’s very frustrating to make a run and feel really good but then they answered with a run and knocked down some big shots and had a bunch of O-boards in the second half.”
The task now is to regroup quickly, as the Buffs host Washington on Thursday night.
Notable
In the latest AP poll released Monday, the Buffs dropped two spots to No. 13. It is their lowest ranking since coming in at No. 20 in the preseason poll. … Six Pac-12 teams are ranked this week. In addition to CU and UCLA, Stanford is No. 4, USC is No. 7, Oregon State is No. 11 and Utah is No. 18. … Arizona swept the Pac-12 weekly honors, with Esmery Martinez named player of the week and Jada Williams named the freshman of the week.
No. 8 UCLA 53, No. 13 Colorado 45
COLORADO (20-7, 10-6 Pac-12)
Sherrod 3-9 4-5 10, Formann 3-10 0-0 9, Miller 4-13 0-0 9, Wetta 1-7 0-0 3, Vonleh 2-6 3-3 7, Sadler 2-5 1-2 5, Smith 0-0 0-0 0, Nolan 0-2 0-0 0, Whittaker 1-4 0-0 2. Totals 16-56 8-10 45.
UCLA (22-5, 11-5 Pac-12)
Rice 6-16 7-9 20, Osborne 6-14 0-0 14, Dugalic 1-4 0-0 3, Brown 2-2 0-0 4, Betts 1-4 0-0 2, Jones 3-5 1-2 8, Sontag 0-1 0-0 0, Iwuala 0-0 0-0 0, Jaquez 1-2 0-0 2. Totals 20-48 8-11 53.
Colorado 7 12 16 10 – 45
UCLA 17 12 11 13 – 53
3-point goals – Colorado 5-17 (Formann 3-7, Miller 1-5, Wetta 1-3, Sherrod 0-1, Nolan 0-1), UCLA 5-16 (Osborne 2-6, Dugalic 1-4, Rice 1-3, Jones 1-2, Sontag 0-1). Rebounds – Colorado 28 (Sherrod 7), UCLA 38 (Rice, Betts 9). Assists – Colorado 9 (Wetta 5), UCLA 8 (Rice 4). Steals – Colorado 15 (Sherrod, Wetta 4), UCLA 7 (Rice, Dugalic, Betts 2). Turnovers – Colorado 15, UCLA 24. Total fouls – Colorado 15, UCLA 9. Fouled out – Sherrod. Attendance – 5,319.
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