It’s easy to view this week’s Pac-12 tournament as a fresh start for the Colorado women’s basketball team.
After closing the regular season with a 1-5 mark over the last six games, the Buffs (21-8, 11-7 Pac-12) slipped five spots to No. 18 in Monday’s Associated Press poll. But, they have an opportunity to get right this week in Las Vegas, starting with Wednesday’s matchup against last-place Oregon in the first round of the conference tournament.
“I always think of the season as three parts,” senior guard Maddie Nolan said. “You have nonconference, conference and then you have the tournament season. So everyone’s coming in basically 0-0 in my mind. Anyone could win it and your record before this doesn’t really matter. … We’re coming in with a fresh slate, ready to go.”
However, “fresh start” has been in the Buffaloes’ vocabulary too often lately.
There was a chance to regroup after a humbling home loss to Oregon State on Feb. 11, but the Buffs lost the next one at Utah after a miserable first half.
A trip to Los Angeles the next week offered CU a chance to rally and pick up two big wins, but they lost both, extending the losing streak to four games. In one game, the defense was bad. In the other the offense struggled.
Returning home last week was a bit of a refresher, but the Buffs had to fight off a late Washington rally to end the losing skid on Thursday, but then collapsed in the last three minutes to lose to Washington State on Saturday.
The fifth-seeded Buffs do have another chance at a “fresh start” this week, but junior guard Kindyll Wetta said, “I mean, (looking at it that way) is what we’ve been doing for the past two, three weeks. So hopefully this time that’ll work and we’ll see.”
Translation: Yes, it’s the start of a new phase of the season, but the Buffs can’t simply brush away the issues that have plagued them over the past few weeks.
Ranked among the top eight in the AP poll for most of the season, the Buffs haven’t been themselves lately. The five losses in this stretch have come against four AP Top 25 teams and five teams among the top 25 in the NET rankings – and all five have been close games. But, CU hasn’t played with its usual precision and maturity in any of them.
“It’s just like small little details that we need to be more focused on,” junior center Aaronette Vonleh said. “Having four losses in a row, that’s when you really can see how those small things turn into big things. So I’m not sure if it’s just like we’re tired — the season is long — but we have to stay focused and get back on top of that.”
In the last three games, the Buffs stumbled in the fourth quarter. They also had their three worst first halves of the season in this six-game stretch and had to rally from double-digit deficits in each game of their four-game losing streak from Feb. 11-26.
“I think our whole focus is just playing good basketball through 40 minutes and not letting there be any drop off,” senior forward Quay Miller said.
Each of the players expressed the belief that the struggles have often been self-inflicted.
“It’s something that we’ve been talking about: go out and play as hard as you can for 40 minutes,” Nolan said. “We’re just gonna keep watching film; we’re gonna be nitpicky. A lot of this stuff is us, not necessarily the other team, which is good, I guess, because it’s stuff that we know we can fix.”
Throughout this slump, though, the Buffs have done a lot of film work and they’ve had plenty of team meetings to try to work through the issues.
Wetta expressed frustration, adding, “I just think our chemistry is off significantly.”
This is a program, however, that has been gearing up for the postseason since their run to the Sweet 16 a year ago. Now that it’s here, are they ready for it?
“I think we’ll find out on Wednesday,” Wetta said. “Hopefully.”
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