Three of the key players who helped the Colorado women’s basketball team reach the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament the last two seasons will be on the court Saturday in Waco, Texas.

Only two of them will be in CU uniforms, though.

Seniors Frida Formann and Kindyll Wetta will lead the Buffaloes into a Big 12 Conference battle at Baylor, which features former CU center Aaronette Vonleh.

“I think it’s always fun to play against former teammates,” Wetta said.

A two-year starter with the Buffs from 2022-24 and a first-team All-Pac-12 performer last year, Vonleh transferred to Baylor in the summer. She’s putting up similar numbers with the Bears this year, averaging 13.6 points and 5.5 rebounds.

For Wetta and the Buffs, however, the visit to Waco won’t be about seeing Vonleh as much as it’ll be about getting back on track.

CU lost at No. 11 TCU, 63-50, on Wednesday and sees an opportunity to get in the win column — even against a Baylor team projected to finish third in the conference.

“We’ve played teams that are just as athletic and have just as good of players and so there’s nothing new there,” Wetta said.

Although the Buffs lost at TCU, Wetta said they should have gained some confidence from that game. The offense struggled, but the defense showed up and limited one of the better teams in the conference.

“I know I do,” Wetta said of taking confidence from that game. “I also don’t think I ever really doubted what our team can do.

“We talked about that was first time that we really defended as a team, and so I think that was good. We also talked about that we could have won that game. We just kind of kicked ourselves in the foot and, ultimately, what made us lose was in our control.”

The Buffs, in fact, were within five points with 4 minutes, 45 seconds to play, but scored just three points the rest of the way and missed six of seven shots down the stretch.

It was the second time this season the Buffs played well defensively on the road against a good team but lost because the offense struggled.

The other time was a 50-47 loss at Boise State on Nov. 10.

Saturday will be another tough test against a good team on the road, and Wetta said the Buffs have to start proving they can win those types of games away from Boulder — especially in Big 12 play.

“You have to be able to win more than half of your conference games, for sure, and that includes winning road games,” she said. “So definitely need to start figuring out how we can persevere on the road, because I think the teams we’ve played against have been good, hard teams on the road — Boise and now TCU. We haven’t won those games, so we need to win one to kind of prove to ourselves that we can win those tough games.”