No. 3 CU regroups ahead of visit to Oregon
Buffs 9-1 in games following a loss over past two seasons
For the final time on Sunday, the Colorado women’s basketball team will play a Pac-12 Conference game in the state of Oregon.
It also marks the last time CU head coach JR Payne will visit her mentor and former coach, Oregon’s Kelly Graves, in Eugene.
Whatever sentimental value all that holds is minor, however.
“I always just love to see Kelly. I just love him so much and appreciate all that he’s done for me as a coach, but also as a mentor and father figure, so I love to see him and his family,” Payne said. “But, we just want to play great basketball. I don’t really care where it is, what time of the day it is, who it’s against. We just want to make sure we’re playing at our best, point blank. Period. That’s it.”
That would be Payne’s mindset in any situation, but particularly after the third-ranked Buffaloes’ lackluster performance in a 6862 loss to No. 25 Oregon State on Friday in Corvallis.
“That’ll be the goal to really regroup,” Payne said. “How do we be better? Let’s do that.”
Plenty of credit goes to Oregon State, which had been on the verge of that type of win all season. The Beavers are a legitimate top-25 team that had come close to beating UCLA, Stanford and USC — all currently ranked in the top 11 nationally — on the road. And they’ve been perfect at home this season.
Still, it was one of the Buffs’ worst games of the season statistically.
CU’S total points (62), field goal percentage (.396), rebounds (27), assists (seven) and turnovers (17) were all at or near season-worst numbers. And, Oregon State’s shooting percentage (.481) was the third-best against CU this year.
“We just didn’t do what we needed to do,” Payne said.
CU has to fix that in a hurry as it visits the Ducks on Sunday
afternoon. Oregon isn’t the dominant team it used to be, but during the grind of conference play, CU can’t afford to look past anyone.
“We’re gonna have to (bounce back), right?” Payne said. “Every game is so important, so we’re going to have to regroup and figure things out and play better.
“There’s lots to learn. None of us are going to hang our hats on a huge win or huge loss. We’re not built that way. We’re built to figure things out and figure out what didn’t work and fix it. I appreciate that about our staff and our team. So that’ll be our mindset.”
Payne and many of the Buffs’ players have been in the Pac-12 long enough to realize there’s often a fine line between winning and losing, against anyone. So, through frustration on Friday night, Payne saw the big picture in glancing toward the visit to Eugene.
“We’ll be fine,” she said. “This is a group that loves to learn, so this is an opportunity. Of course, we wanted to win the game, but we’re going to be able to watch the film and be a better basketball team by (Saturday) afternoon because of the experience we had tonight.
“That doesn’t mean all of a sudden we make all of our shots, but if our execution can be a little bit better when it’s crunch time, or if we can communicate a little bit more effectively on ball screen coverage, or all of those areas just a little bit improved tonight, maybe a different outcome.”