Published: March 1, 2012 By

CU vs california students on court

As of January, freshman guard Lexy Kresl, above, was second on the team in scoring at 10.3 points per game and led the Buffaloes in both 3-point field goals (30) and free-throw percentage at 84 percent.

CU’s basketball teams were predicted to finish tied for 10th [men’s media poll] and 11th [women’s coaches poll] in their first seasons in the Pac-12. But the Buffs weren’t falling into line at the beginning of conference play. The men started Pac-12 action 8-3, while the women were 4-6.

The women’s squad, in its second season under head coach Linda Lappe (Mktg’02), matched the second-longest win streak to start a season in program history. In going 12-0 to wrap up the 2011 portion of the schedule, the only faster start for a CU women’s hoops team was a 15-0 run in 1992-93. The Buffs also went 12-0 in 1980-81.

Perhaps getting out of the blocks so fast was a reaction to the Pac-12 coaches’ low preseason expectations for the Buffs.

Meanwhile, the men’s team started conference play 3-0 for the second straight year — the first time that has happened in almost 50 years. And in consecutive games, the Buffs held teams to 34 and 33 points — the fewest by Buffs’ opponents since the 1940s. All that happened despite CU losing its top four scorers after the 2010-11 season.

And the future looks bright for both basketball teams as they each signed recruiting classes that ranked among the top 25 in the nation.

Former CU football standout Bobby Anderson (A&S ex’69), who led Boulder High School to the 1963 state title, was inducted into the Colorado High School Activities Association Hall of Fame in January. Anderson is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame, the Big Eight Hall of Fame and the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame.
The CU golf teams’ new indoor practice facility — all 5,700 square feet of it — was scheduled to be completed in late February at Colorado National Golf Club in Erie. The building will bear the name of George Boedecker Jr., a founder of the Crocs shoe company and a key supporter of CU athletics.