The Buffs will take on K-State Saturday for a second time
It’s a common sports cliché, but most teams know it to be true: it’s always more difficult to beat a team the second time around.
The Buffs hope to make it more than just difficult in a rematch with the Wildcats this Saturday. They hope to get a win.
The CU women’s basketball team lost to the Kansas State Wildcats earlier this season, on Jan. 19, in a close game where the Buffs lost by seven points. The team will have the opportunity for payback against the Wildcats in Boulder on Saturday.
Colorado will look at film from its previous game with the Wildcats to break down the offensive and defensive sets for both teams. It gives the Buffs the chance to learn from the mistakes the team made in its first game against Kansas State.
“We’ll have an opportunity to sit down with the players and watch and see where they were successful and some areas that we struggled in – where we need to improve,” said head coach Kathy McConnell-Miller. “A lot of times when players, particularly this week, get to see on film, it’s like they hear the message so much louder.”
One of the areas the Buffs’ struggled against the Wildcats in the first game was turnovers. Colorado committed 17 turnovers, and Kansas State scored 15 points off those turnovers. McConnell-Miller said that limiting turnovers is always a priority with the team, and the Buffs need to be more efficient at half court in their offensive sets.
Colorado snapped a six-game losing streak against Texas last Saturday, so the team has some momentum for the Wildcats. Another boost for the Buffs is that the team has had a week of rest and practice between the Texas game and this Saturday’s contest with the Wildcats.
But Colorado’s match up against Kansas State is a big one. The Wildcats are ranked No. 15 in the AP Top 25 poll. Kansas State is also leading the Big 12 conference with a 10-2 conference record and an 18-7 overall record.
“They don’t have any one player that’s really good. They just play very well as a team,” said senior forward Jackie McFarland. “They have good team chemistry. It’s a lot harder to guard when you have five threats on the floor than it is when you have two really good players.”
The Wildcats also had four scorers in double-digit points in the first game. McFarland said the Buffs hope to get Kansas State out of their offensive sets and hope to “force them out of their comfort zones.”
Colorado is also approaching the end of the regular season with four games remaining on the schedule. It would be a good for the Buffs to start those four games with a win over a top-seeded team.
“We have to win every single game if we want to make the NCAA Tournament, so we’re just getting ready,” said sophomore forward Aija Putnina. “We’re going to go back and watch the previous game and just see what we did wrong.”
Two of the Buffs’ four remaining games are at home. After Kansas State, the Buffs will go on the road to play Baylor and then Nebraska. CU will close out the regular season at home against Missouri.
“The most important thing is that you protect your home floor. We’ve made that a priority from day one,” McConnell-Miller said. “And we’ve had some real competitive games here at home. Second, we got to go on the road, and we’ve got to be generally focused.
Still, the Buffs have struggled in the second half of the season. After going on an 11-game winning streak earlier, the team has only won two of its last 11 games. McFarland said that losing games against Iowa State, Texas A&M and Kansas State after the 11-game winning streak affected the team.
“I think after losing all three of those really close games, we kind of started to doubt ourselves and started going away from what got us all those wins,” McFarland said.
But as the season closes and the team prepares for the Big 12 Women’s Basketball Championship, CU has the opportunity to better itself in the tournament seeding, and Saturday’s game against the Wildcats could be a good place to start.
“This team knows the significance of coming down the stretch of where the seedings are and how difficult it can be starting from the very bottom or how easy it can be starting on top, or starting with the higher seed,” McConnell-Miller said.
Contact Campus Press Staff Editor Kyle McDaniel at Kyle.McDaniel@thecampuspress.com
