March Madness is right around the corner, and the Colorado Buffaloes women’s hoops squad is starting to feel the pressure.
Despite their hot start by defeating No. 1 Louisiana State, No. 8 Stanford and No. 6 USC earlier this season, the Lady Buffs have begun to fall back to earth. After losing five of their last six games, things began to look bleak, especially for those on their final journey as a Buffalo. The Buffs dropped their final home game of the season to the Washington State Cougars on senior day, causing emotions to run very high at the CU Event Center.
“You don’t really know what the NCAA tournament is gonna hold, but you never wanna end like that,” said Colorado star point guard Jaylyn Sherrod, fighting back tears. “You just gotta take it all into perspective. We’ve got more games to play and more to prove. This [loss to the Cougars] sucks now but we’ll achieve our goals in the future.”
Currently ranked as the 18th-best team in the nation in the AP Poll, the Buffs were just bested by 13th-ranked Oregon State in the quarterfinals of the Pac-12 tournament and will now hit the road for the NCAA women’s basketball tournament starting on March 22.
Sherrod and five other seniors are embarking on their final ride in Colorado black and gold, making this year a do-or-die for the Buffs. CU is one of the country’s most experienced veteran squads, and they’ll lose that edge when nearly a third of their players depart at season’s end.
No single Buffalo has been more impactful on court than Sherrod, as she’s the heartbeat of the Lady Buffs and a masterful facilitator of her teammates on the offensive floor. She may not put points on the board like some of her other teams, but her ability to set up her teammates for fantastic open shots and her unselfish nature make her a nightmare for opposing defenders.
Sherrod was named to the all-Pac-12 team on Tuesday and was named the conference’s scholar-athlete of the year, making her the first-ever Colorado player to win the award. Buffaloes coach JR Payne got emotional when touching on the impending departure of Sherrod at the season’s end.
“I feel like Jaylyn and I have grown up together in a lot of ways,” Payne said, tears welling in her eyes. “We’ve just gone through a lot together. Lots of wins, lots of big moments, lots of key moments, lots of developing, lots of long talks and hard talks and challenging each other to be great. [The players] are all like my daughters and I’ve been with Jaylyn the longest.”
Payne shared the moment she knew that Sherrod was special after her first Pac-12 game when she directly challenged an Oregon Ducks team led by superstar Sabrina Ionescu after a blowout loss on national television.
“I’ll never forget for as long as I coach our first Pac-12 game at Oregon against Sabrina and those guys, and we lost by I think 56 points,” Payne said. “The commenter put a microphone in front of her face and said ‘Welcome to the Pac-12, what do you think?’ and the first words out of [Sherrod’s] mouth were, ‘They still gotta come through Boulder.’ The fearlessness of that statement is in her DNA.”
Colorado and their seniors aren’t done yet though, as a whole new season is just beginning. Postseason basketball is finally here, meaning nearly every single game going forward is a do-or-die.
“I know we all feel the crunch time of it,” Sherrod said. “We all know that this team can be really special. That’s still on the table, nobody here is writing us off. We’ve just gotta go out there and handle business.”
