It seemed almost impossible for the DU women’s basketball team to recover in less than three days from a 71-36 beat-down at the hands of instate rival Colorado last Thursday; however, the team rebounded on Sunday afternoon from its worst loss of the season to defeat Oregon 89-65, the best win of the Pioneers’ season.
“Unfortunately both games end up representing us,” said head coach Erik Johnson. “This is the fun part of the season, because we are still learning a lot about ourselves. What we know now from those two games is that we need to be able to get up and down the floor and get our transition offense going.”
In Sunday’s win, the Pioneers (7-3) exposed one of the nation’s top offensive attacks by outrunning and outscoring the Ducks (7-2). In addition, the Denver defense suffocated Oregon, holding the Ducks to a season-low 65 points, including a season-low 21 first-half points.
The Pioneers offense jumped out to an early lead, scoring a season-high 48 points in the first half.
Denver saw top performer Kaetlyn Murdoch record 21 points, which moves her to sixth on the program’s all-time scoring list. Sophomore guard Quincy Noonan shined with 16 points, while freshman Morgan Van Riper-Rose had a career-high 15 points in the contest.
“The difference in the Oregon game was our shot selection; it was excellent throughout,” said Johnson. “Knowing when to take the quick transition shots and knowing when to hold back is vital to our offense. We need to make sure we play more like did against Oregon, than we did against CU.”
Less than three days after the terrible loss to CU, where the Pioneers set season lows in shooting and scoring, DU found itself playing its best basketball of the season.
“We were able to get back on defense and play our half court defensive set and we were able to beat their press, so we played the game fully in our style,” said Johnson.
The up-and-down nature of last week, where the team lost a game by 35 only to win the next game by 24, isn’t something new to the Pioneers this season. Since losing their first game of the season to UTEP on Nov. 26, the team has yet to win back-to-back game, recording a 3-3 record against some top-notch competition, which includes previously ranked Vanderbilt.
“Clearly, we have some very good emotional stability and some good leadership,” said Johnson. “A tough loss is not going to derail us, and I’m just hoping a great win doesn’t affect us too much the other way. We have to know how we are and get better for the next game.”
Tonight the Pioneers’ resiliency will be tested again when they take on a 7-5 Minnesota club that hasn’t shied away from tough competition either.
On Dec. 4, the Lady Golden Gophers dropped a contest to the No. 1-ranked Baylor Bears at home. Since the loss, Minnesota has been perfect, winning three games by an average margin of 30 points.
Johnson says that it’s important for his team to learn from each game, but not stay in the past when they take the court.
“What’s important for our program is to be able to identify what lessons do we take from each game and use those lessons to help us with our next opponent,” said Johnson. “We want to go into every game using what we know now, and apply it to that opponent. Minnesota is another team, but we won’t be looking at the name of the jersey.”
