Buffs Suffer First Home Loss of the Season

BOULDER – Colorado's 12-game home winning streak came to a close at the hands of Southern California, 71-54, at the CU Events Center on Sunday.

Colorado (16-5, 7-3 Pac-12) struggled to contain USC's outside shooting, allowing the Trojans to hit nine 3's on the day. Destiny Littleton accounted for a bulk of the damage with six 3's of her own and a game-high 21 points.

Senior Quay Miller and sophomore Aaronette Vonleh led the charge for the Buffs. Miller finished with her second-consecutive double-double (13 points, 11 rebounds) and reached the 1,000 career-point plateau. Vonleh led Colorado with 16 points, going 7-for-13 on the day.

"I'm just grateful to be in the hands of Coach J [Payne] and T [Toriano Towns], Alex [Earl] and Tim [Hays]," Miller expressed. "I'm happy that I came [to Colorado] and got that milestone in Colorado with the Buffs."

Colorado led by as many as five in the first quarter and held the lead for almost 12 minutes in the first half, but found itself down five in the locker room at halftime. USC closed the door on the Buffs in the second half, extending its lead to as many as 19 before the final horn.

"I think we are going to go back and watch the film and say we are a lot better than that," head coach JR Payne said after the game. "USC is a very good team. One of the most talented teams in the conference, and that is saying a lot because this conference is full of talent. We obviously didn't do what we needed to do to be successful today and they made us pay for that. We competed on the glass. We took care of the ball. There are some good things that we did, but we didn't play well enough to beat them. Every team in this league is so good you have to actually beat them to win. You can't just play the game, you have to go out and take it from everybody and we did not do that today."

How It Happened
The first two quarters were nearly identical in how they played out. Colorado jumped ahead early in each frame and then USC put together runs at the end to swipe away the momentum. CU started the afternoon with a 9-4 advantage after a steal and score from Tameiya Sadler, but the Trojans closed the quarter on a 10-0 run, taking a five-point lead.

The Buffs opened the second with a 6-0 run, reclaiming the lead, 15-14, but USC used a 9-1 run at the end of the half to lead 26-22 at the break.

USC's outscored the Buffs by a combined 19-1 inside the final four minutes of the first and second quarters.

"I think we missed some pretty good looks early,' Payne added. "I don't know if that made us hesitant. USC is very big inside so sometimes it's hard to get deep paint touches against a big team like that. If you are not really hitting from outside the way you normally do, then it makes it hard because you don't have that inside and outside balance. We felt tired, to be honest."

Littleton hit her third 3 of the afternoon sparking a 9-1 open to the third quarter for the Trojans and putting the Buffs behind the eight-ball, 35-23. Littleton hit four 3's in the period and USC put up 26 points in the frame to take a 52-41 lead into the final quarter.

"We got ready for them [Littleton, Marshall, Sissoko]," Miller commented. "We knew what it was from the scout. We watched the film and we just didn't execute it today. They're great players but at the end of the day, we knew what they were capable of. We knew their strengths. We knew their weaknesses and we didn't take them away."  

Miller put up five points in the fourth quarter and Colorado got back to within 13, 63-50, with her 1,000th career point. Minutes later, Miller was fouled out of the game and the Buffs would drop their first contest at home since Feb. 13, 2022 (vs Stanford).

"Any rational person can say it is really hard to play at your best in this league every night, but we have high expectations for ourselves daily," Payne reflected. "Today, and it's clichés, but we didn't play Colorado basketball. Our shootaround wasn't as focused as it needs to be. We didn't execute the scout very well as Quay said. We need to be better than that. You don't throw the baby out with the bath water, we are having a great season. Maybe this is a blessing where we refocus and we don't allow any slippage anywhere at any time because that is what it takes to keep winning in this conference."

Turning Point
The game tilted heavily in favor of the Trojans between the end of the second and the start of the third quarter. Colorado weathered the 9-1 run from USC to end the half and trailed by just five. But the start of the third saw a second 9-1 run that pushed the Trojans to an unsurmountable 35-23 lead.

"That was the game I think," Payne admitted. "We had subs at the table for about three minutes. When they went on that 9-1 run, I think people were fatigued at that time because we turned it over, they scored in transition, turned it over, scored in transition. At that point, we didn't have any stoppages in play. That was difficult. We went into halftime on a down note, which is hard. We tried to regroup at halftime. We didn't play well enough, hard enough. We weren't tough enough. We didn't execute well enough. Bottom line, our effort was fine, but that is not enough in this league, you have to play pretty well to win."

Up Next
Colorado will be back on the road next week with a trip to the Evergreen State. The Buffs will open up with Oregon on Friday (8 p.m. MT) and then take on Oregon State on Sunday (1 p.m. MT).   

Notes
Colorado had won the previous three games against USC and is now 11-16 overall against the Trojans…CU was outshot at the free throw line 83.3% (10-12) to 38.5% (5-13)…The Buffs started the day ranked 2nd in the Pac-12 with a 29.4% 3-point defense, but allowed USC to hit 47.4% (9-19) from 3-point distance…Vonleh has now scored 10+ points in 16 consecutive games.

Quotes
JR Payne
ON THE GROWING CROWDS - "We have felt the growing appreciation around this program. Back-to-back, great crowds. I know our marketing team is working to make events around our game that are fun. We are playing really great basketball. So, the crowds are awesome, so important, and so helpful for us to continue to win and play in a great environment. We love it."

Quay Miller
On Any Emotional Letdown after UCLA - "I think that the hype is exciting for some. I really don't know because I think it [the problem] was just us at the end of the day and we didn't execute the scout. That's just what it is. We did not execute the scout."