Following its 71-55 shellacking of the Buffaloes Thursday night, Utah now flies to Boulder to face the Buffs again on Sunday — this time on Colorado’s home court. Colorado has just one win since conference play began in January, against under-manned USC. Nonetheless, the Buffs have improved their play of late and possess a wild card scorer in freshman guard Kennedy Leonard.
In her last two games, Leonard is averaging nearly 17 points and six assists on a respectable 48 percent shooting from the field. She has had her struggles this year, as any freshman does, but the All-American nominee averaged 17 points, eight assists, six rebounds and four steals per game. Against Utah on Thursday, Leonard put together several great sequences, navigating the pick and roll with patience, stepping out and knocking down the jumper or dumping off to the screener — Leonard is figuring the college game out.
The Utes, however, were revitalized by their win Thursday night, their first in almost three weeks.
“I think we didn’t focus on the outcome of the game, we were focusing during the game on what we could do to win,” said senior Dani Rodriguez on the team’s shift in focus after Thursday night’s win.
Rodriguez earned her career-high 19 points against the Buffaloes and will look to have another high-scoring output again on Sunday. Rodriguez came into the contest against Colorado with a focus on scoring the ball, a different approach for the floor-general who sits fifth all-time on Utah’s assist total.
The Buffaloes had no answer for Rodriguez, who put pressure on the defense by pushing in transition and probing the defense repeatedly.
“She’s got great speed and we felt like early in the shot clock that we could take advantage in transition,” said head coach Lynne Roberts of Rodriguez and the emphasis to push the tempo against Colorado. “We call it answering, where if the other team scores we say ‘answer,’ and she answered several times tonight, which is deflating [to the opponent] trying to make a comeback.”
Despite Utah’s strong play on Thursday, Sunday will prove to be a tough contest. Colorado is still 5-6 on its home floor, and it is traditionally difficult for teams to sweep opponents in a home-and-home mini-series.
In her weekly press conference on Tuesday, coach Roberts called the second game of the series a “trap game” for whichever team won the first matchup due to complacency. Roberts seemed less worried about the matchup following Thursday’s win, citing considerable room for improvement as reason enough to avoid complacency by her players.
Although it is struggling this season, sitting at the bottom of the Pac 12 standings, Colorado has put together strong games and strong sequences. Through three quarters against Utah, Colorado hung even with the Utes in rebounding, an area Utah depends on greatly to win games.
Behind Leonard and head coach Linda Lappe, also a Colorado alum, Colorado will continue to improve and test teams with its tough home court and pesky defense.
Catch the game on the Pac-12 network at 12 p.m. MST this Sunday.
@westinjay