No. 3 Colorado prepares for weekend homestand against LA's finest

JR Payne and the Buffs are in control the Pac-12 and look to pull ahead

CU Buffs

The third-ranked CU women's basketball (15-1) defends their home court with back-to-back top ten battles this weekend. JR Payne's Buffaloes took care of business against No. 8 Stanford with a 71-59 win on Sunday. It was the third victory over a ranked team on the season, including an upset over top-ranked LSU in Las Vegas.

Colorado is currently riding a nine-game winning streak and hasn't lost in the continental US. Aaronette Vonleh leads the charge for the Buffs, averaging 15.1 points per game with 62.6 percent from the field. Jaylyn Sherrod isn't far behind. Colorado's senior guard currently averages 13.8 points per game. She also leads the Buffs with 5.6 assists and 2.6 steals per game.

The 5th-ranked UCLA Bruins (14-1) come to Boulder looking to shake off their first loss of the season. They took a 73-65 defeat at the hands of No. 6 USC last weekend, which had them tumble three spots down the AP Top 25 rankings. Charisma Osborne tried her best to pull the Bruins back in the game with 25 second-half points against the Trojans. She moved to fourth on UCLA’s career scoring list with 2,010 points, and her 256 three-pointers are tied for the most in program history.

UCLA is preparing for a physical matchup with Colorado. Bruins coach Cori Close even used a unique tactic in practice this week. She showed up wearing a football helmet as a reminder that the Buffs can get scrappy.

“We were shocked,” Osborne told the LA Daily News. “Like, no way this is Coach Cori. But I think it was a good message. Colorado’s gonna want to push us around, so we need to come in and be really tough. We didn’t show that last week, and I know we're such a tough team.”

Colorado will have to work UCLA from the inside and have consistency with second-chance points. It's part of the reason why the Bruins fell behind against the Trojans. Close knows it's going to come down to who can be the bigger team down low.

“We’ve got to do a great job owning the paint,” Close told the LA Daily News. “They want to own the paint. We want to own the paint. Who’s going to be able to do that?”

Colorado welcomes UCLA into Boulder for a Friday night affair at 8 p.m. ET with coverage on the Pac-12 Network. The Buffs enter the matchup with averaging 81.4 points per game. On the other hand, the Bruins allow 60.1 points per contest. However, CU hasn't been held under 60 points so far this season.

UCLA will exit after tonight with 6th-ranked USC right behind them for a tilt on Sunday afternoon. The Trojans (13-1) will come to the Flatirons to face the Buffs after a layover in Salt Lake City to square off with No. 20 Utah on Friday.

USC guard JuJu Watkins is currently second in the nation, averaging 26.5 points per game. She had 32 points in the Trojans win over UCLA on Sunday. It was her sixth 30-point performance this season, which is second behind Iowa's Catlin Clark, who has ten games of 30 or more.

Colorado and USC will tip off Sunday at 3 p.m. ET on the Pac-12 Network.