Colorado Woman’s Basketball Senior Night
Colorado Woman’s Basketball concludes spectacular regular season in an adequate fashion with a home win on Senior Night over Oregon St.
The Buffaloes end their season with a 60-45 point win over Oregon State pushing their record to impressive 20 wins. Prompted by their hot start at the beginning of the season with 14 wins, they became the only undefeated college basketball team. They end the season 10-7 in Pac-12 conference play, with some impressive wins including an upset over No. 25 Oregon and the sweep of both USC and UCLA at the CU Event Center.
They ended their regular season on a high note over the Beavers, ending the 11 game losing streak against OSU by jumping out to a hot start and dominating on defense the rest of the game.
After a quick start by both teams, the Buffs found themselves up 22-16 at the end of the first quarter. Sophomore Frida Formann provided a huge spark from the bench scoring seven straight points including a three to bring the Buffs ahead with 2:41 remaining, CU never gave back the lead.
Formann led the Buffaloes through the first half, scoring 13 points off the bench and eventually matching her season high. The Buffs ended the first half in complete control, finishing the half on an 18-1 scoring run while holding OSU to just 10 points total in the quarter.
The energy for CU was sky high going into the locker room at halftime, but Senior Lesila Finau knew to not grow complacent, “We realized the game wasn’t over, we just said that we need a lock in, just don’t let up. You know, don’t give up the lead because that had happened Wednesday night. So we just made an emphasis to stay on the next.”
Points were far harder to come by in the second half, as the Buffs struggled to find the bottom of the net shooting just 28% in the second. Their defense continued to hold strong though, forcing a total of 20 turnovers while only letting their lead dip to eight points in the second.
Senior Mya Hollingshed, who holds the CU record for most career games with 137 games, finished the night with 13 points and eight rebounds in her final contest at the CU Event Center. Frida Formann’s excellent first half propelled her to tie her season-high and lead the team with 15 points. The defense is what held strong against the Beavers in the end, racking up 14 steals which led to 17 points at the other end.
It was all around an emotional Senior day for the players and head coach JR Payne as she spoke after the game about what her seniors mean to her, “I was very proud and continue to be very proud of these guys and I just I remember our first recruiting conversations, you know, four and five and six years ago, where we talked about building a legacy and building a championship program and that it’s not it’s not just basketball, it’s so much bigger than basketball.”
Other seniors Peanut Tuitele and Lesila Finau finished their regular season Colorado careers as well, combining for 11 points and 11 rebounds to help secure the victory in their last night.
Senior, Tuitele spoke on what winning today meant to her. “It means the world to me because you know, our team bought in and they really worked hard for us seniors and we also worked hard for the team so you know, it’s incredibly special that this happened today.”
With this win, the Buffaloes clinched their first 20 win season since 2013 and look forward to the Pac-12 tournament on March 2nd and then hopefully the NCAA Tournament after.
Playing some of their best basketball, Mya Hollingshed is confident in what Colorado has been doing on the court, “Right now we’re doing what we do best, getting back to what we’ve been doing and just playing as a team. I think we are realizing that we are the only ones that can really stop ourselves. So I think it’s a good time.”
The Buffaloes go into the Pac-12 Tournament on fire winning five of their last six, with the only loss coming against No. 2 Stanford who has yet to lose to a Pac-12 opponent this year.
