Buffs awake, knock out Drake
Vonleh and Wetta pace CU into Sunday’s Round of 32
Digging a bit of a hole in the early moments of a game is nothing new to the Colorado women’s basketball team.
Neither is climbing out of that hole and cruising to victory anyway.
On Friday night, the first two minutes didn’t go quite like the fifth-seeded Buffaloes had hoped, but the last 38 were dominant as they rolled past 12th-seeded Drake 86-72 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament at Bramlage Coliseum on the Kansas State University campus.
“We’ve had a few games this year where we have started slow, so it’s not really anything new,” junior Kindyll Wetta said. “It’s obviously not ideal, but we’re comfortable in that spot just knowing that just because we’re down early doesn’t mean we can’t come back.”
Wetta had a career-high 16 points, Aaronette Vonleh posted a double-double (18 points, 10 rebounds) and Jaylyn Sherrod had 16 points and eight assists to help the Buffs (23-9) earn a secondround matchup against fourthseeded Kansas State (26-7) on Sunday. The host Wildcats defeated Portland 78-65 earlier on Friday.
“Just really proud of how we played tonight,” CU head coach JR Payne said. “I thought we had a great sort of week and a half of practice and preparation. Drake is such a good and such a different team. I was very nervous about this game, not that I didn’t think we were capable, it’s just such a different style. We have not played a team like Drake all year. So I’m really proud of how our team prepared.”
Despite that prep, Drake (296), the champions of the Missouri Valley Conference and winners of 14 straight games coming in, jumped to a 9-0 lead just two minutes into the game.
Once the Buffs got on the board, though — with a Quay Miller 3-pointer 2:16 into the contest — they found their rhythm. CU outscored the Bulldogs 86-63 in the last 38 minutes.
The nine-point deficit was the second-largest in a victory in CU’S NCAA tournament history, only behind a 10-point comeback against Stanford on March 25, 1993.
“Shoot, I wish I knew so I could replicate it if we’re ever in that situation,” Payne joked when asked