As postseason approaches, Colorado is still searching for answers

The 35-point win, the largest of the season for Colorado, boosted CU’s NET ranking overnight by 8 spots, from 65 to 57, and pulled the Buffaloes into contention for an at-large berth to the NCAA tournament should they fail to win the Big 12 tournament next weekend in Kansas City.

It’s been an up and down season for head coach JR Payne’s squad. Coming off of back-to-back appearances in the Sweet 16, the expectations for the CU women’s basketball team were Rocky Mountain high coming into the season. 

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But like many college basketball coaches in this tumultuous period, Payne experienced tremendous turnover in her roster during the off-season and was forced to recruit ten new players, including several graduate students via the transfer portal.

With such a massive makeover and only one returning starter in Frida Formann, the Buffaloes were picked in the preseason to finish ninth in their first season returning to a very competitive Big 12 conference. 

At 9-9 in conference play, CU finished the Big 12 regular season in ninth place, just as predicted. But for the most part, Colorado has struggled against top competition, especially on the road. The Buffaloes are 4-8 in Quad 1 and 2 matchups, and only 1-8 on the road in conference play.

On Saturday, Colorado completed its regular season with an agonizing, 83-79 overtime loss at Texas Tech. The Red Raiders snapped a nine-game losing streak at the expense of CU’s bid to earn a first round bye in the Big 12 tournament. Instead, the loss dropped the Buffw to the ninth seed, meaning they will be forced to play an extra game on Wednesday in a first round matchup against no. 16 seed Houston.

It might have been a different season for CU had it not been for injuries, starting with Formann. The fifth-year sharpshooter (a.k.a., “Three-da”) is Colorado’s all-time leading three-point shooter and was named in November to the Wooden Preseason Top 50 Watch List.

But Formann, a native of Denmark, was forced to miss the first four games of the season with a stress fracture in her foot. When she recovered and returned to action, Formann immediately began contributing scoring, defense and leadership on the floor, just as she has throughout her decorated career in Boulder. In a stirring 65-60 win over No. 14 West Virginia at the CU Events Center on December 21, Formann poured in 22 points to lead all scorers.

Then, in late January, Formann injured her other foot with a new stress fracture. She’s been unable to play ever since. With Formann sidelined again, CU has lost five of its last nine games. 

The emotional toll the injury has taken on the team and on Formann herself is palpable.

“It’s been super, super frustrating,” Formann told The Next. “I mean, one thing is missing games, which is very frustrating, obviously, to not have the chance to be out there. But I think something under the radar that people don’t see is even the games that I have played, when you do have an injury that’s kind of keeping you from having a higher load. And I’m always someone [who has taken] a really high load in terms of just what we do.”

A rash of other injuries has also afflicted Payne’s squad. In early December, senior point guard Kindyll Wetta, the quarterback of the CU’s offense, collided with freshman Kennedy Sanders in practice, resulting in concussions for both players. Wetta, the sole native Coloradan on Payne’s roster, had never missed a game in a Colorado career spanning over 100 games, but this season she missed five contests during a key stretch of the season.

Ditto for stalwart forward Sara-Rose Smith, CU’s leading rebounder this season. The senior from Australia missed five games from a foot injury, but returned to action for CU’s regular season finale on Saturday.

At a recent home loss to powerhouse Baylor, four different players sat at the end of CU’s bench, including Formann and Smith, wearing warm up suits and protective boots on their injured feet. A casual observer could have been forgiven for thinking that Colorado’s famed ski team had shown up in place of the basketball team.

Payne empathizes with Formann and her other players who’ve been deprived of an opportunity to make the most of their swan songs as collegiate basketball players. “I mean, I’m disappointed for some of our seniors that they’ve spent most of the year injured,” Payne told the Next. “That’s heartbreaking for them and for all of us. So that’s been really difficult to try to manage and help them manage.”

Overall, injuries have kept Buff players out a total of at least 36 games this season, compared to just 14 during the past three seasons combined.

“It’s been complicated from day one,” Payne told The Next. “Because Frida missed the first four games of the year, so you’re playing without your best player and leading scorer and most experienced veteran on a team with really only two or three veterans. So definitely, that’s a huge impact. And then, you know, we lost our fourth year point guard for several games in the middle [of the season] and several [games] at the end. And so, yeah, I mean, it’s not an excuse, but it certainly plays a factor, of course.”

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One player who has emerged this season to help fill the gap caused by all the injuries is junior forward Jade Masogayo. A 6’3” transfer from Missouri State, Masogayo has blossomed into a multi-tool player who can score, defend, rebound, and run the court. She leads the team in scoring with 327 points in 27 games for an average of 12.1 points per game and is second in rebounding with 4.9 caroms per game.

In a clash with Arizona on February 5, Masogayo registered a double-double in the first half of a gritty, 56-47 win at home. Last week, Masogayo’s teammates voted her the team’s Most Valuable Player and the Offensive Player of the Year at the team’s end of season awards banquet. 

“It’s not just the coaches that believe in her, her teammates believe in her,” Payne explained to The Next.  “She is our most valuable player in that way, in that she’s been very consistent. Her percentages are very high. She’s doing it on both sides of the floor, defending, blocking shots, scoring, getting to the free throw line, all of that.”

In public, Masogayo often comes off as soft-spoken and shy, but through the course of the season her confidence and assertiveness have grown along with her success on the court.

“When she came here, she was kind of just timid in general, I think both personality wise, but also play wise,” Formann told The Next. “And we’ve been trying to get her to realize that this team can kind of go as she goes, so she needs to assert herself in that role. And it’s been really cool to see, especially while I’ve been out, that she’s just talking on the floor a lot. She’s bringing a lot of energy. She’s taking a lot of responsibility as well. She’s super coachable. So I think it’s just been like a massive growth for the season, of her confidence and how she views herself on the team, and the type of responsibility she takes.”

When Colorado plays its best, the team receives balanced contributions from a variety of players. One of those contributors is Lior Garzon, a graduate student transfer from Oklahoma State. 

A three-point specialist and a native of Israel, Garzon has reached double figures 14 times this season, averaging 10.6 points per game. With 275 career treys, Garzon ranks 17th among active D1 players.

Garzon played with flair on Wednesday’s senior night, leading the team with 17 points and 8 rebounds. As the first Israeli varsity athlete to participate in Colorado athletics, Lior has become a fan favorite. Midway through the season, CU’s public address announcer began honoring Garzon after she made a three-pointer by declaring his signature, “That’s one, two, three” in Hebrew instead of English: “That’s achat, shtayim, shalosh!”

Asked what it means to her to hear her native language announced to the crowd, Garzon got emotional. 

“It means a lot, especially [because] the past two years [have been] really, really hard,” Garzon told reporters on senior night. “So having this appreciation, just like people care and want to, like, make you feel at home, I just really appreciate it. And every time [I hear the Hebrew], it makes me really smile on the court.” 

So, what are Colorado’s prospects moving into the postseason?

The loss on Saturday to Texas Tech is a setback in two ways. First, it makes it much harder for CU to win the Big 12 Tournament and an automatic bid to March Madness. Had the Buffs held on to win in Lubbock, they would have earned the eighth seed and a bye to the second round on Thursday. Instead, as the ninth seed, the Buffaloes will have to endure an extra game on Wednesday and the win four more times in order to cut down the nets in Kansas City.

Perhaps even worse, the loss to Texas Tech puts a late season blemish on CU’s resume for a team that already was residing on the outer perimeter of the bubble. Charlie Creme of ESPN had bee listing Colorado among the “next teams out” in his bracketology projections; however, in his most recent projection, the Buffaloes are nowhere to be seen. Herhoopstat.com also projects CU to miss the field of 68.

In all likelihood, Colorado will have to make a deep run in the Big 12 tournament to get themselves back into the NCAA tournament conversation. But to do that, the Buffs will have to accomplish something that’s eluded them so far this season: beat elite opponents away from home.

For Formann, it comes down to executing the game plan. 

“The base level of how to beat a good team like that is you have to execute your scout,” Formann told The Next. “And that has been kind of hard for us lately; playing a really good Iowa State team and knowing we can’t let them make a bunch of threes, and then we go out there and we don’t execute our scout, and we let them get exactly what we didn’t want them to have.”

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Another area Colorado will need to improve upon if they hope to make a run in the postseason is ball security. The Buffs have turned the ball over an average of 17.7 times per game this season, which ranks 267th in the nation. 

“I think [the turnover problem] definitely has contributed to losses,” Payne told The Next. “It’s something that we really focus on, even in practice. When we really put a priority on it, we do a better job, you know, we take care of the ball. So it just has to be something that we’re always aware of and conscious of.”

It seems strange to think that at the end of the season, this Buffaloes squad is still searching for chemistry and a winning formula, but that’s one of the consequences of an injury-riddled season. The good news is that younger players are getting a chance to contribute and gain experience. 

But with 18 wins already under their belts, including triumphs over nationally ranked West Virginia and Kansas State, this eclectic group of players still has swagger and belief.

As Formann puts it, “Everyone’s seen themselves be that player. So hopefully that’s something that can fuel everyone to just have some really good performances.”