LAS VEGAS — Aaronette Vonleh was so dominant on Monday night that LSU went deep on its bench to bring in some size to contend with her.
Vonleh was also so good that Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal, arguably the most dominant big man in basketball history, visited the Colorado locker room, pointed at her and gave her a hug.
“I like her,” Shaq told CU head coach JR Payne.
“Yeah, we do too,” Payne responded.
Playing against arguably the best frontcourt player in the country, Vonleh was a beast in helping the 20th-ranked Buffaloes upset No. 1 LSU 92-78 on Monday at T-Mobile Arena in the season opener.
Vonleh scored 24 points – one shy of her career high – while hitting 11-of-15 shots. She also pulled down six rebounds and dished four assists, all while guarding LSU All-American Angel Reese.
“Thatap one thing that we love about our ballclub is we do have tremendous balance,” Payne said. “We can play inside, we also can play outside. I think we have some individuals that are really tough to guard one-on-one and so when you can space shooters around a player like Aaronette, itap just, itap tough, because she is extremely dominant and it was really, really great to see her play the way she did today.
“She could do that every night. I mean, we believe that strongly that she is that good. So really neat to see her do that on a stage like this.”
Reese, the most outstanding player of the Final Four last year in leading LSU to the national title, still put up good numbers, with 15 points and 12 rebounds, but she wasn’t the dominant force she was in March. Reese, who averaged 23.0 points and 15.4 rebounds last season, made just 6-of-15 shots against the Buffs as Vonleh and others out-muscled her and other Tigers.
“I think for the most part, we are a pretty physical team,” Payne said. “We’re always the underdog. We don’t have a single five-star kid or McDonald’s All American, so we’re built on toughness, we’re built on game plans and executing and things like that. So it wasn’t necessarily Angel Reese in particular, we just wanted to play our style of basketball.”
It was epitomized by Vonleh’s performance, though.
The Buffs kept feeding her in the point and she kept scoring. At one point in the second half, LSU brought 6-foot-6 freshman Aalyah Del Rosario into the game. Del Rosario, a five-star rated as the No. 7 recruit in the 2023 class by ESPN, hadn’t played up to that point and didn’t do much against Vonleh, either, in her four minutes on the court.
“Before the game, I just told (Vonleh) to be in attack mode all the time,” CU’s Frida Formann said. “Every time she got the ball, you could see she was looking to get her own and thatap what we need from her because she really is unstoppable. Like, we play against her in practice every day and itap really hard to guard.”
LSU features two of the best rebounders in the country in Reese and Aneesah Morrow, but CU was only outrebounded by two, 39-37. And, the Buffs outscored the Tigers in the paint, 42-38.
In the zone
Late in the game, with LSU looking to make a run, CU switched to a zone defense and it forced a few turnovers, including a steal by Tameiya Sadler that she converted into a layup.
Payne credited associate head coach Toriano Towns for dialing it up.
“Coach T is our defensive coordinator and he’s awesome,” Payne said. “We’re good defensively every year and he does a great job with that. … I think he knew that if we needed to have a different look defensively, that that was something we could go to, although we haven’t practiced it in like two weeks, so I didn’t think he would go to it. But it was a good change of pace for us.”
Support
CU had a strong contingent of fans in the building and the arena in general had a good crowd for the top-20 matchup.
“I thought the crowd support was incredible,” Payne said. “Behind our bench, we had a lot of CU supporters. We had fans and donors and family members and staff. A lot of people came down to support us during this game and then the others that you’re speaking of, the Las Vegas community, I think showed out. I think they like Pac-12 basketball, our tournamentap been here and I think this community really supports women’s basketball.”
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