Later today, the Zags will take on the #1 seeded Colorado Buffaloes at 12:00pm PST in the second round of the WBIT. The contest will be featured on ESPN+ and will feature the Bulldogs on the road in Boulder.
Colorado completed their inaugural season in the Big 12 with a 21-12 (9-9) record that saw them finish 9th in the conference before falling in the finals of the conference tournament to the TCU Horned Frogs. Despite their failure in the Big 12 conference tournament, their 73-41 victory over Southeastern Louisiana demonstrated a team not ready to see their season come to a close.
The Buffs were snubbed with regards to either team or individual Big 12 honors as no member of this team received nominations for any end-of-season award, which isn’t terribly surprising given the talent in a conference that sent 7 teams to the Big Dance.
6’3” junior forward Jade Masogayo leads her squad with 12.5 points, 4.8 rebounds, 1.4 assists, 0.6 steals, and 1.2 blocks. She will be expected to exclusively do her damage in the paint as she only shot 1 three pointer all season. Jade had a strong performance in the team’s opening WBIT match and the Zags will need players like Yvonne, Esther, and Maud to play smart, avoid unnecessary fouls, and control the paint against not just this Colorado big, but also the next two.
Accompanying Masogayo as the Buffaloes’ front court representatives are 6’1” senior forward Lior Garzon and 6’2” senior foward Nyamer Drew. Lior averaged 11 points, 3 rebounds, 1.3 assists, 0.8 steals, 0.2 blocks while Nyamer averaged 7.4 points, 3 rebounds, 0.9 assists, 0.6 steals, and 0.6 blocks. Unlike Jade, these two bigs will need close monitoring on the perimeter as they combine for 7.2 threes per game and they drained 31.8% and 38.2%, respectively.
A big missing piece for this Colorado team is the 5’11” senior guard Frida Formann who was competing with Jade Masogayo for the team’s lead scorer with 12.5 points before her eventual season-ending injury near the end of January. While the Buffs haven’t really had another guard capable of stepping into Formann’s shoes, 5’9” senior guard Kindyll Wetta has tried her best and finished the campaign with 6.2 points, 3.2 rebounds, 5.3 assists, 1.7 steals, and 3.3 turnovers. While the point guard struggling with an influx of turnovers after Formann’s injury, 4.3 over the final nine games, Wetta performed well in the opening WBIT match with 10 points, 7 rebounds, 6 assists, and just 1 turnover.
As a team, Colorado averaged 69 points per game on 52.3% two-pointers and 35.1% three pointers. Those shooting numbers rank nationally as 29th and 40th nationally, but don’t expect this team to run the ball much as they had the fourth lowest pace in the Big 12 and their shots per game ranked 207th and 228th for two point and three point shots respectively.
While the team distributes the ball well with a season average of 16.2 assists per game, they suffer similarly to the Bulldogs with turnovers as they coughed it up 18.2 times per contest. In fact, they had 11 games with 20+ turnovers, which surpasses the Zags’ 5 such games. Even worse, they committed 31 turnovers against Houston in the opening Big 12 conference tournament and 19 turnovers against Southeastern Louisiana in the first WBIT match. Hopefully, Gonzaga can continue to limit their mistakes like they did against UTSA and punish Colorado’s mistakes.
The Buffaloes defense allowed 64.5 points per game to their opponents this season, which ranked 9th in the Big 12, 181st nationally, and is basically the same as GU’s 64.1 per game. Interestingly, Colorado averages an unimpressive 7.5 steals and 2.8 blocks per game, numbers that rank 203rd and 204th nationally. As such, it’ll be interesting to watch how their defense will restrict the Bulldogs given that the Buffs’ rebounding numbers aren’t particularly notable with just 10.8 offensive and 25.7 defensive per game. Given Gonzaga’s strong offensive rebounding performances this campaign, this could be an area to be exploited by the Bulldogs.
While the numbers look to favor Gonzaga, this will be a tough matchup in part because of Colorado’s Big 12 battled-tested roster, but also because the Zags will be entering hostile territory. On the season, the Buffs averaged a home crowd of 3,032 per game, although similar to the Bulldogs, CU failed to meet those average attendance numbers with just 1469 in attendance against Southeastern Louisiana. Hopefully the Buffalo faithful stay home tomorrow afternoon and the home court advantage dwindles enough to create a more even field for the Zags.
Hit the comments below to give your thoughts on the match events and outcome. Catch up with you soon!
