Nine years later, the Buffs are dancing again
College basketball teams work all year to get selected to the March Madness field, yet only 68 teams make it to the tournament.
On March 13, for the first time since 2013, the Colorado women’s basketball team was selected to the NCAA Tournament. The Buffs, coming off of a Pac-12 semifinal appearance, are slotted in as a No. 7 seed in the Greensboro region and will face Creighton on Friday, March 18 at 11:30 a.m. in Iowa City.
#CUBuffs are March Madness bound! They’ll take on Creighton this Friday. #SkoBuffs pic.twitter.com/oImRlvzyqi
— Meghan MacPherson (@meghankmac) March 14, 2022
“It feels like we’re fulfilling something that we’ve been working towards every single day for six years,” said head coach JR Payne shortly after the selection was announced. “We’ve come close, but fallen short. So to reach this opportunity is really great.”
Payne will be making her first tournament appearance as the leader of the Buffaloes, after taking over as the head coach. It will be her third tournament appearance overall, after competing as a player at St. Mary’s in 1999 and as an assistant coach at Boise State in 2007.
After getting off to a blazing 13-0 start to the season, the Buffs looked like an early lock to make the field, but a four game losing streak in January created a hole that they had to dig themselves out of. CU caught fire once again, winning their final five regular season games and grinding out a huge upset victory over Arizona in the Pac-12 quarterfinals.
“Our backs were against the wall about a month ago,” Payne expressed. “We were in situations where we felt like we had to win in order to make the field of 68, and we did. And then the next weekend, you have to win to make the field, and in that process, we realized that we’re pretty tough when our backs are against the wall.”
This tournament appearance is a long time coming for this group, which has picked itself up from the cellar of the Pac-12 all the way to fourth place this year, their highest league finish since 2013.
It is a landmark moment for the program, something tangible that it can build on moving forward into the future, both in the next few weeks and the next few years. But it took experienced veterans like fifth-year senior Mya Hollingshed, who put off her professional career for one more year in black and gold, to make it happen.
“We knew last year we were one game away, and we fell short of that goal,” said Hollingshed. “This year we wanted to experience that and have this celebration with everyone, especially the CU fans and CU alumni… Personally, I just couldn’t be more grateful for this experience. I’ve never done this, and for me to finally do this in my fifth year, it’s a Cinderella story.”
Just because the Buffs are here, and ecstatic to be here, doesn’t mean they’re complacent. This is a team that is poised and ready to make a run. A veteran roster led by Hollingshed’s inside-out game, a pesky, in-your-face defensive identity and a plethora of depth on the bench is always a threat this time of year.
Colorado is also looking to get some reinforcements back before Friday morning. Both Tameiya Sadler (back) and Lesila Finau (ankle) are expected back for the Buffs’ first round game after exiting the Pac-12 Tournament with injuries.
“We can go far in this tournament,” said Washington transfer Quay Miller. “I’m excited to make a run with these girls.
