The final score suggests that the Colorado women’s basketball team cruised to an easy win on Tuesday night.
It was anything but easy for the seventh-ranked Buffaloes, however, who used a dominating fourth quarter to rally past Boston 85-55 at the CU Events Center.
“Glad we had a fourth quarter,” CU head coach JR Payne said. “That’s what my mom just said to me. Just stagnant, kind of passive in the first three quarters of the game. We just made a decision that we were going to be more aggressive and got the ball inside more effectively.”
Frida Formann scored 22 points, including passing the 1,000-point mark for her career, to lead the Buffs (7-1), who outscored the Terriers 38-5 in the final 12 minutes, 4 seconds of the game.
“I think the whole game was just a grind and like us staying the course and knowing that at some point we were gonna grind them down,” said Formann, who also had a career-high six steals. “We started getting turnovers and then … (Aaronette Vonleh) got a bunch of layups inside and just like staying the course.”
Led by star Caitlin Weimar, Boston (5-2) took a 50-47 lead with 2:27 to play in the third. From that point on, however, it was all CU.
The Buffs closed the third quarter on an 8-1 run to lead 55-51. Then they scored the first 16 points of the fourth to extend the run to 24-1.
“It was the fourth quarter, so it was like, ‘It’s now or never,’” Formann said. “I think as a collective, we’re working on trying to figure out how we can we can flip that switch a little bit on our control and not whenever it just happens.”
Boston’s only field goal in the last 12:57 came with 20 seconds left in the game. The Buffs forced 10 fourth-quarter turnovers, converting those into 14 points.
The dominating run was fueled by Vonleh and Quay Miller. The Buffs’ frontcourt duo scored 12 of the first 16 points in that run.
“Their bigs were in foul trouble, so we just made it a focus to take advantage of the fact that they couldn’t really try to … they just had to contest straight up,” said Vonleh, who had 18 points and six rebounds. “I think we ran the same play like over and over, like five times down the floor and it was so effective.”
Miller had 12 points and nine rebounds, while Jaylyn Sherrod added 14 points and four assists.
“In a lot of ways, we have a really mature team to be able to handle (a sluggish first three quarters) and to be able to not really go off the rails because we’re not playing well on either side of the ball,” Payne said. “To be able to sort of stay the course, refocus in timeouts, refocus on what we need to do, refocus on what our coverage is, make sure we’re all on the same page, I think that’s a very mature group.”
Notable
Sherrod moved into third place on CU’s all-time assists list, with 516, passing current Buffs assistant coach Shelley Sheetz (514 from 1991-95). … Formann became the 34th player in CU history to reach 1,000 career points. She also moved into sixth place on CU’s career list for made 3-pointers, with 201, passing Kate Fagan (197 from 1999-04). … Wing Sara-Rose Smith was limited to six minutes as she battled an illness all day. … CU improved to 70-8 in regular season non-conference games under Payne, including 46-2 at home. They’ve won 34 consecutive non-conference home games.
Fast break
Why the Buffs won: They finally got aggressive and turned it on late, dominating the final 12 minutes by outscoring the Terriers 38-5. Their defense and rebounding made the difference down the stretch.
Three stars:
1. CU’s Frida Formann: Finished with a game-high 22 points, including five 3-pointers, and a career-high six steals.
2. CU’s Aaronette Vonleh: Posted 18 points on 8-of-9 shooting, along with six rebounds, three assists and two steals.
3. Boston’s Caitlin Weimar: Kept the Terriers in it for three quarters, finishing with 16 points, 12 rebounds and two assists.
Up next: CU will visit Air Force on Saturday at 1 p.m.
No. 7 Colorado 85, Boston 55
BOSTON (5-2)
Giannaros 5-10 3-4 16, Weimar 4-11 8-8 16, Adler 3-3 1-2 7, Ericksen 1-2 0-0 2, Beneventine 1-2 0-0 2, Mingo 1-5 1-2 4, Jasper 0-0 1-2 1, Gormley 1-4 0-0 3, Grane Torres 0-2 0-0 0, Monteagudo 1-1 0-0 2, O’Gilvie 0-0 0-0 0, Semenova 1-3 0-0 2. Totals 18-43 14-18 55.
COLORADO (7-1)
Sherrod 5-11 4-4 14, Sadler 1-3 0-0 2, Formann 6-15 5-5 22, Miller 5-14 1-2 12, Vonleh 8-9 2-3 18, Atchison 0-2 0-0 0, Smith 0-1 0-0 0, Wetta 2-4 2-4 7, Johnson 1-2 0-0 3, Nolan 0-4 0-0 0, McLeod 1-2 0-0 2, Whittaker 2-2 1-2 5. Totals 31-69 15-20 85.
Boston 16 11 24 4 – 55
Colorado 16 19 20 30 – 85
3-point goals – Boston 5-15 (Giannaros 3-5, Mingo 1-2, Gormley 1-2, Grane Torres 0-2, Semenova 0-2, Ericksen 0-1, Beneventine 0-1), Colorado 8-26 (Formann 5-11, Miller 1-5, Wetta 1-1, Johnson 1-1, Nolan 0-4, Sherrod 0-2, Sadler 0-2). Rebounds – Boston 31 (Weimar 12), Colorado 36 (Miller 9). Assists – Boston 9 (Giannaros 3), Colorado 22 (Sherrod, Sadler, Wetta 4). Steals – Boston 2 (Giannaros, Beneventine), Colorado 18 (Formann 6). Turnovers – Boston 27, Colorado 8. Total fouls – Boston 15, Colorado 19. Fouled out – None. Attendance – 2,743.
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