Colorado State University Athletics
Women's Basketball Preview - Denver
12/1/2006 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Dec. 1, 2006
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Game 7:
Denver (2-2) at Colorado State (2-4)
Sunday Dec. 3, 2006 • 2 p.m.
Fort Collins, Colo. • Moby Arena (8,745)
The Series
Overall Record CSU Leads, 13-3
In Fort Collins CSU Leads, 8-1
In Denver CSU leads, 5-2
At Neutral Sites 0-0
Warden vs Denver 0-1
Radio
Colorado State Sports Network
Play-by-Play: Brian Roth
Color Analyst: Corbu Stathes
Fort Collins: 600 AM KCOL
Denver: 560 AM KLZ
The Match up
Colorado State (2-4) returns to the friendly confines of Moby Arena to take on the University of Denver Pioneers (2-2) at 2 p.m. on Sunday.
The Rams enter the contest, coming off a loss to Colorado in which Colorado State held the Buffs to 30.2 percent shooting and held a 55-38 rebounding edge. However, the Rams were unable to overtake the larger Buffaloes, falling 56-51.
Denver comes to Fort Collins with an overall record of 2-2. The Pioneers began the season with a 97-43 dismantling of Lamar, but posted a 1-2 record at the Rainbow Wahine Tournament in Honolulu last week. DU fell to Arkansas, 84-58 and Texas Tech, 67-53, but closed the tournament with a 60-31 victory over Sacramento State.
The Pioneers are led by Pam Tanner who holds a 161-153 mark in her 12th season at the helm in Denver. Tanner has brought the team from NCAA Division II to Division I and took the team to its first NCAA Division I Tournament appearance in 2001.
On the court, Denver is an experienced group that features 11 letterwinners and four starters that have returned from last seasons squad which finished 15-13 overall, 8-7 in the Sun Belt Conference.
Senior Tyesha Lowery and junior Brooke Meyer lead the Pioneers this season. Lowery averages 13.3 points per contest while Meyer entered this season ranked third in school history in career three-pointers and comes to Fort Collins averaging 6.0 points per game this season.
Junior guard Alisha Godette, a transfer from Arizona State, has come on strong for the Pioneers, recording 15 points and 14 rebounds against Sacramento State. On the season, she is averaging 8.7 points and 7.0 rebounds per contest. Junior forward Sara Benham provides the Pioneers post presence, entering the game averaging 11.8 points and 3.3 rebounds per game.
Colorado Recap
Despite holding the Buffaloes to 30.2 percent shooting, and outrebounding the larger Colorado team by a 55-38 margin, the Colorado State University women's basketball team was unable to pull out a victory over their rival Wednesday night in Boulder, Colo., falling to 2-4 on the season.
The Rams stifling defense held Colorado to 0-for-10 in the games first 6 minutes, but Colorado State was only able to take a 4-0 lead during that stretch and was unable to hold on to it for long against the Buffaloes playing on their home court.
The team exchanged buckets and lead changes between the 13:45 and 12:28 marks of the first half before Colorado regained the lead at 7-6 at that 12:28 mark. The Rams battled, but trailed by an eight point margin, 30-22 at the half.
Colorado began the second half in the same fashion, and following an 11-3 run by the Rams to start the second period, Colorado State tied the game at 33 with 13:35 left in the contest.
However, Colorado responded coming out of the media timeout with an 8-0 run of their own and regained the lead for the final time.
The Rams rallied and Kelly Jo Mullaney scored nine of the team's final 11 points, but it was not enough, as the Rams fell by a final of 56-51.
Mullaney again led the Rams in scoring, finishing the contest with 17 points and seven rebounds, becoming the only Ram player to score in double-figures in each of the team's first six contests. Molly Nohr, the only other Ram to accomplish the feat through five games, fouled out of the contest with only four points and four rebounds in 20 minutes of action.
Junior guard Sara Hunter also scored in double figures for Colorado State, tallying 13 points, and freshman Emily Neal notched 10 points in 29 minutes off the bench for Colorado State.
Freshman Juanise Cornell led the Rams in rebounding in the contest, recording a career-most 13 boards, to help the Rams to a season-high 55 total rebounds.
DU Series Notes
Colorado State holds a decisive 13-3 edge all-time against the University of Denver. The two teams met for the first time in 1975, as the Rams dismantled the Pioneers 93-21 in Fort Collins. The Rams won the next two meetings before falling to the Pioneers twice during the 1978-79 season. Colorado State then rattled off 11 straight wins over Denver before falling 77-58 at Magness Arena last season.
In Good Company
Freshman guard Kelly Jo Mullaney led the Rams in scoring for the fourth time in six career games and eclipsed the 100-point mark for her career. She joins former Utah standout and 2006 WNBA Draft first-round selection Kim Smith as the only freshmen in Mountain West Conference history to reach 100 points in six games. At her current pace of 19.0 points per contest and with at least 23 contests remaining on the Rams schedule this season, Mullaney would finish sixth all-time on the single-season scoring charts and second by a freshman, behind former consensus All-American, Becky Hammon.
Defensive Battle
The Rams loss at Colorado shaped up as a defensive battle from the outset. Both teams struggled from the field in the contest as Colorado State shot just 31.6 percent from the floor and held Colorado to 30.2 percent shooting. Each team also held the other's second-leading scorers, Jasmina Ilic and Molly Nohr, in check for the entire night. Ilic, who entered the game averaging 12.5 points per game mustered just two points against the Rams. Nohr entered the contest as the fourth leading scorer in the Mountain West Conference at 16.4 points per game, but recorded just four points before fouling out of the contest. It marked the first time this season that Nohr had been held under double-figures in scoring in each of the team's first six games.
Neal Contributes Offensively
Freshman guard Emily Neal scored the first points of her collegiate career against Idaho in the Coors Rocky Mountain Invitational, notching four points to go along with three boards in 10 minutes of action. The following night, Neal set a netted eight points against Western Carolina in 14 minutes of play. In her first taste of the CSU-CU rivalry, Neal recorded 10 points in 29 minutes on the floor. Her 10 point effort against the Buffaloes was the first double-digit scoring game by a player other than the Rams' starting guard trio of Kelly Jo Mullaney, Sara Hunter and Molly Nohr.
On Guard
The Rams backcourt continues to impress early in the 2006-07 season. The Rams starting three-guard set of Kelly Jo Mullaney, Sara Hunter and Molly Nohr has accounted for 72.6 percent of the team's scoring through six games.
Cornell Crashing the Boards
Freshman forward Juanise Cornell recorded her first-career double-digit rebounding game, pulling down 13 boards against the University of Colorado. The 5-10 Cornell continually fought for rebounds over a taller Colorado lineup. For the season, Cornell ranks second on the team, averaging 7.4 rebounds per game, good for sixth in the Mountain West Conference.
Colorado Connection
For the second consecutive contest, three members of the Colorado State coaching staff, including head coach Jen Warden will have a close connection to the opposition. Warden, and assistants, Linda Lappe and Randie Wirt each played for the Colorado Buffaloes during their college careers and Warden was an assistant in Boulder for a decade from 1992 through 2002. Warden was a part of the 1988 Big 8 Championship team as a player, along with University of Denver assistant coach Tracy Tripp.
Keep Your Friends Close...
Sunday's game against Denver is the second in a three-game stretch in which the Rams face in-state rivals. The Rams were edged by Colorado, 56-51 on Wednesday night in Boulder. Colorado State closes the tour with a Dec. 6 matchup at Northern Colorado.
Call in the Reserves
Colorado State will soon get a boost in the front court with the return of Raysha Ritter and the Ram debut of Kelly Finley. Freshman Raysha Ritter, who scored five points in the Rams' season opener against UMKC was in uniform for Colorado State's game at Colorado. She could see her first playing time in since the season-opener on Sunday against Denver after recovering from arthroscopic surgery on her right knee. Finley, a sophomore transfer from Northwestern University, will be eligible to play in her first game as a Ram, Dec. 17 against Oklahoma Panhandle State, after sitting out a year due to NCAA transfer regulations.
Top Assist-Field Goal Combos
The Combintion of Sara Hunter to Kelly Jo Mullaney accounted for half of the Rams' assists against the University of Colorado. Hunter, recorded a team-leading five assists in the contest, four of which went to Mullaney who led the Rams in scoring with 17 points. Hunter to Mullaney surpassed Nohr to Mullaney as this season's most productive assist-to-field goal combo.
Hunter to Mullaney 10 Nohr to Mullaney 8 Mullaney to Hunter 7 Nohr to Hunter 6 Nohr to Cornell 5 Hunter to Nohr 4 Mullaney to Nohr 4 France to Mullaney 4
Fan Support
Colorado State improved its streak of games home games played in front of more than 1,000 fans to 164 games over the weekend as more than 1,400 fans turned out on each night of the Coors Rocky Mountain Invitational. The Rams defeated Idaho, 88-68 in front of 1,432 fans on Friday, but fell to Western Carolina, 64-60 with 1,451 fans in attendance. The last time that the Rams played in front of fewer than 1,000 fans at Moby Arena was Jan. 5, 1996 against Idaho State.
Block Party
Colorado State tied a team-record with 11 blocked shots against the University of Idaho in the opening round of the Coors Rocky Mountain Invitational. Senior Marilyn Moulton led the way with a career-high six blocks, which ranks second on the all-time single-game charts. Freshman center Nya Mason added three of her own. The Rams followed up that performance with four blocks against Western Carolina and two against Colorado. After a slow start, with just one block in each of the team's first two contests, the Rams are averaging 4.75 blocks per game in the last four games.
Seeing 20/20
Guards Sara Hunter, Kelly Jo Mullaney and Molly Nohr each added to their career-totals for 20-point games in the Rams' victory over Idaho. Hunter tallied 24 points, while Mullaney and Nohr each netted 21 in the contest.
Name # Sara Hunter 5 Kelly Jo Mullaney 3 Molly Nohr 2