Despite success, CU Buffs women’s basketball holding onto underdog mentality – The Denver Post

As the postseason begins this week, there are plenty of signs that the Colorado women’s basketball team is garnering more respect.

The Buffaloes moved up one spot Monday in the Associated Press rankings to No. 20 – despite a loss last week to Stanford – made their first appearance of the season in ESPN’s power rankings, at No. 16, and appear to be in the conversation for hosting the first couple rounds of the NCAA Tournament in two weeks.

Still, the Buffs (22-7, 13-5 Pac-12) view themselves as somewhat of an underdog, even as they are a lock for the NCAA Tournament and even as they take the No. 3 seed into this week’s conference tournament, which starts Wednesday in Las Vegas.

After the program’s first first-round bye in 10 years, CU will face either USC or Oregon State in Thursday’s quarterfinals.

“Now you want to prove that you deserve it,” junior guard Frida Formann said. “Because I think we’re still … no one thought of us that way. Still, we feel there’s some sort of, like, ‘Are they that good? Do they deserve to be (in)?’

“So I think we just always know that we’ve got to go and show what Colorado basketball is to anyone who’s still out there not really sure what it is.”

The Buffs don’t necessarily feel disrespected, but after so many years of being entrenched in the bottom-third of the Pac-12, they continue to embrace the hard work, blue collar mentality that has lifted the program in the past three seasons.

“We’re not the underdogs, but we still, like, I guess, in our hearts – in here – carry that mentality, just because that’s how we’ve been the whole season,” senior center Quay Miller said.

From 2014-2020, the Buffs finished ninth or worse in the Pac-12 every year, including three last-place finishes. Then, they vaulted to sixth in 2021. Last year, they were fifth, reached the conference tournament semifinals and snapped a nine-year NCAA Tournament drought.

This year, the Buffs were projected by coaches and media to finish eighth. They’ve already raced past outside expectations, but they were hardly satisfied as they hit the practice floor on Monday.

“People are still looking at us like, ‘Oh, I don’t know,’” Miller said. “But I feel like … we’re not done and we’re still trying to keep that type of focus. We still have a lot to prove.”

That starts Thursday and head coach JR Payne loves her team’s mentality heading into the postseason.

The Buffs brushed off a heart-breaking double-overtime home loss to then-No. 3 Stanford on Thursday to rout California, 95-69, in Saturday’s regular season finale, showing their mental fortitude once again.

“I think we’re as prepared as we’ve ever been (for the postseason),” said Payne, now in her seventh season at CU. “I definitely think we’re better (than last year) and just really resilient. We had a lot of veterans last year, but even more it feels like this year, where people have experience and have been through some games that we knew cost us last year on certain things.

“I think we’re a pretty veteran group. I think we’re mature. We have big goals and we want to keep winning, and we want to play as long as we possibly can and I think we know that you have to have the right mental approach to that.”

For this team, the right mental approach is to remember the work it took to get here, forget the rankings and seeds and don’t worry about which team is on the other side of the court.

On Monday, one of the players was in Payne’s office and asked how the Buffs are going to prepare for Thursday without knowing their opponent. Payne’s answer was simple.

“I said, ‘Well, all we need to do is play great basketball,’” Payne said. “That’s it. The goal is everyone should be crushing their role, stay connected, grow our communication even more. We just want to play great basketball, no matter who we’re playing. And I think when we do that, because we have enough veterans and we have enough depth and we have enough pieces that can do different things, then we’ll be fine.”

Notable

South Carolina remained No. 1 in the latest AP poll, followed by Indiana, Utah, LSU and Maryland. At No. 3, Utah has its highest ranking ever. Five Pac-12 teams are ranked: Utah, No. 6 Stanford, No. 19 UCLA, No. 20 Colorado and No. 21 Arizona. USC received 10 points in the voting. … Oregon’s Te-hina Paopao was the conference player of the week, while Oregon State’s Raegan Beers was the freshman of the week.

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