BOULDER, Colo.—Texas’ victory over Colorado was a runaway—literally.
The 14th-ranked Longhorns, using tenacious defense to fuel their transition game, scored one easy basket after another on fastbreaks and routed mistake-prone Colorado 74-50 on Wednesday night for their fourth consecutive win.
“I think our main goal coming in was to disrupt the offense,” said Texas’ Ashleigh Fontenette, who led the Longhorns with 13 points. “We wanted to play pressure defense and get the turnovers because we’re best when we get out and break the run.”
Texas pressured the Buffaloes into 22 turnovers leading to 39 points for the Longhorns, who never trailed in the game. They scored the game’s first 14 points, led 41-21 at the half and by as many as 32 points late in the second second half.
“I thought consistently we struggled to score because of the physical nature of Texas,” Colorado coach Kathy McConnell-Miller said. “I don’t think it surprised us. I just don’t think we handled it. The expectation was they were going to get in the passing lanes and be physical. They got some deflections, some steals that led to layups, and I think it rattled our guards.”
Cokie Reed scored 12 points and Kathleen Nash and Brittainey Raven added 10 points each for the Longhorns (17-6, 6-3 Big 12). Texas beat Colorado (12-10, 2-7 Big 12) for the 10th time in 11 meetings in continuing its strong play since starting the conference season with consecutive losses.
“I think we definitely turned our conference season around, because we started off pretty bad, so we just wanted to come out the next few games and just try to show that we are an improved team,” Fontenette said.
Certainly, Texas was the better team by far against Colorado.
“I credit our defense,” Texas coach Gail Goestenkors said. “I thought we did a great job getting in the passing lanes, and we switched on some screens. We just gave them some different looks maybe than they’ve seen. I thought we were just really ready to play. I think our quickness caused some problems.”
Chucky Jeffery had 12 points to lead Colorado (12-10, 2-7), which lost its 15th in a row to a ranked opponent. Alyssa Fressle added 11.
McConnell-Miller said she was most disappointed by her team’s lackluster play in the first half. Colorado didn’t score its first basket until Bianca Smith hit a 3-pointer more than five minutes into the game.
“Clearly, I need to look at the lineup and maybe some of the rotations I have in there, but we haven’t gotten off to a great start and it’s put us on our heels in the last three games,” she said.
