Posts tagged George King
CU’s MBB Overcome Themselves (And Elon) In 80-63 Win
Dec 14th
First ten game win streak in 52 years
By B.G. Brooks, CUBuffs.com Contributing Editor
BOULDER – Colorado coach Tad Boyle seriously doubted that a post-Kansas hangover reared its head on Friday night and his junior point guard, Spencer Dinwiddie, was even more emphatic.
“Not at all,” said Dinwiddie after No. 21 Colorado had finally disposed of Elon University 80-63 at the Coors Events Center. “It’s a credit to our team – we move on fast after wins and losses . . . I just don’t think we gave (Elon) the respect they deserved and we didn’t guard them at the three-point line.”
Yet as erratic and simply puzzling as the Buffaloes (10-1) were in several areas – shooting free throws, protecting the ball and defending the long ball to name three – they still won their tenth consecutive game, which hasn’t been done in CU basketball in 52 years.
Dinwiddie has emerged as the team leader
Said Boyle: “It gives you an idea of where our program is when we win by 17 at home and people are kind of disappointed and frustrated. So I guess that’s a good sign.”
Such is progress, particularly when it follows six days after one of the benchmarks in program history – a 75-72 buzzer-beating victory over then-No. 6 KU. In the wild aftermath of that game, Boyle’s message to his team had been: “Don’t get drunk on your own wine.”
According to Dinwiddie at least, the Buffs took it to heart and head. But on Friday night, CU stumbled around just enough and Elon hit more than enough treys to make Boyle and the CEC crowd of 8,831 occasionally uneasy. The Phoenix’ 13 made treys (32 attempts) was an opponent high this season against the Buffs.
Boyle called the Phoenix (5-5) “a good team” that will win its share of games in the Southern Conference. But he also said his team won “a take-care-of-business-game” with a “workmanlike effort” – hardly superlatives after a superlative Saturday against the Jayhawks.
“Some nights it’s not going to be as pretty . . . there’s still a lot of improvement to be made,” Boyle said. “But I thought the cream rose in the second half.”
CU’s cream on this night: Dinwiddie, Xavier Johnson, Josh Scott and freshman George King. Dinwiddie finished with 17 points, seven assists and six rebounds, while Johnson and Scott each contributed 12 points and had double-doubles. King scored 10 off the bench, helping CU roll to a 31-6 edge in that area, and had a second-half tip-dunk that perked up his team and the crowd.
“Like coach Boyle said, I’m just trying to get my number called,” said King, who played 14 minutes (he had 15 against Arkansas State). “I didn’t know I was going to get this much time, but I had success on the boards (four rebounds) and attacking their defense. I got more time and I took advantage of it.”
Johnson, said Boyle, was a first-half “beast,” getting 11 of his 15 rebounds in the opening 20 minutes. Scott added 13 rebounds as CU bashed Elon 54-27 on the boards.
“To Colorado’s credit, first of all they are very good, they are very talented,” said Elon coach Matt Matheny. “But they out-rebounded us in the first half by 22 . . . we cannot expect to hang around with a top 25 team (like that). They really just abused us on the glass.”
But the Phoenix – specifically 6-8 senior Sebastian Koch – returned the abuse from beyond the arc. After opening the scoring with a trey, Koch drained another eight for the night, finishing nine of 14 from long range for a game-best 27 points.
“They shot threes very well,” Dinwiddie understated. “The open looks we gave them in the first half – that we shouldn’t have, that they missed – went in the second half. That, along with them slowing us down in the zone, really made it close.”
Also keeping the Phoenix in touch was the Buffs’ misfiring at the free throw line. CU finished the night 27-of-46, which certainly has Boyle’s attention but doesn’t panic him. “We chart every free throw in practice,” he said. “Our worst shooter in practice is shooting 75 percent . . . free throw shooting is a very individualistic thing; you get in the gym and do what you have to do. I have confidence they can do it in a game.”
Maybe more puzzling to him than the clanked foul shots were the Buffs’ 12 first-half turnovers – four more than they committed all game against the Jayhawks. Fortunately, CU’s second-half total (four) didn’t match the first half, but in comparing the 16 turnovers against Elon to the eight against KU, Boyle said, “As a coach, you scratch your head over that one.”
The Buffs didn’t score for nearly 4 minutes, missed their first five shots and committed five of their dozen first-half turnovers during that span. Elon surged to a 13-6 lead on Koch’s three-pointer with 12:25 left before halftime.
A couple of minutes before that, Boyle had seen enough. He pulled his five starters and replaced them with senior Ben Mills, sophomore Xavier Talton and freshmen Dustin Thomas, Tre’Shaun Fletcher and King.
A change did the Buffs good – or at least refocused them.
They caught and passed the Phoenix on a trey by Johnson from the left wing, grabbing their first lead at 17-16 with 10:10 left in the half. They outscored the Phoenix 21-5 to go up 27-18, with Dinwiddie hitting back-to-back treys at the run’s conclusion. In the half’s last 12 minutes, CU outscored Elon 35-13 and took a 41-26 lead to their locker room, matching their biggest advantage to that point.
CU pushed its lead to 19 (49-30) in the first 31/2 minutes of the second half, but Elon answered with five consecutive 3-pointers to pull to 52-45. Koch drained three of the five triples, with Tanner Sampson (12 points) accounting for the other pair.
The Buffs countered with a triple and a shorter jumper from Xavier Talton (nine points, six rebounds) and a layup and free throw from Scott to build another double-digit lead – 60-47. The Phoenix closed to 69-60 on a layup by Ryan Winters with 6:20 to play, but a conventional three-point play and a subsequent layup by Dinwiddie pushed CU ahead 74-60 with just over 3 minutes remaining.
The trey-happy Koch wasn’t done. He reached 27 points with his ninth triple of the night, bringing Elon to within 74-63 at the 2:59 mark. But when “XJ” responded with consecutive layups, pushing CU ahead by 15 (78-63), Elon was finally done.
For a second consecutive game, CU redshirt freshman Wesley Gordon remained sidelined due to illness/injury. He was on the bench in street clothes, but Boyle said Gordon would be ready to play on Saturday, Dec. 21 against No. 7 Oklahoma State in the MGM Grand Showcase in Las Vegas.
The Buffs’ 10-game winning streak – something that hasn’t been done in CU hoops since the 1944-45 season – “is another milestone,” Boyle said. “I haven’t talked to this team a lot – because we’re so darn young – about what their legacy is going to be. But as we move into conference play I think those are things we need to talk about and celebrate. It’s a great thing; 52 years is a long time.”
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Rain of treys couldn’t stop the Buffs
Nov 22nd
Trey defense is the “official deficiency” of the team
BOULDER – The Colorado Buffaloes’ perimeter defense has them living on the edge. They survived another three-point barrage Thursday night – this one by UC Santa Barbara – and won 76-68 for their fifth consecutive victory at the Coors Events Center.
But, according to coach Tad Boyle, the Buffs’ three-point defense is “officially a deficiency of our team. Maybe I’ve been in denial . . . if it happens six games in a row, then maybe it’s a trend.”
Minus leading scorer (24 ppg) and rebounder (13 rpg) Alan Williams – a 6-7, 240-pound inside force – the Gauchos compensated on the perimeter by making 11 of 28 three-point attempts. Seven of the 11 treys left the torrid right hand of reserve guard Taran Brown, who scored a career-high 23 points. He missed only three of his long attempts.
Teren Brown hit 7-11, 3-point shots for the Gauchos
Guard Askia Booker said the Buffs’ scouting report on the Gauchos identified Brown “as a shooter . . . but we didn’t know he shot like that.”
And that didn’t sit well with Boyle, who said it’s up to his players to trust what they’re told on paper and shown on tape. “That’s not respecting your opponent,” Boyle said. “When you have ‘shooter’ on the report that means he’s a shooter. I don’t care if he’s starting or coming off the bench.”
And don’t offer up to Boyle that his players are still adjusting to this season’s new closer called hand-checking rules for their failure to defend the three: “The new rules can’t be a reason anymore,” he said. “If you’ve got a job to do, start doing it.”
But Boyle also noted that UCSB came prepared to play – even without Williams, who was sidelined with back spasms. “There’s sometimes after games when you tip your hat to your opponent,” Boyle said. “I thought Santa Barbara was great tonight; their kids were ready to play . . . we took a pretty good shot from them tonight (and) I told our team we should be glad their best player didn’t play tonight.”
The Gauchos’ 11 treys were one less than the Buffs surrendered in a 91-65 rout of UT-Martin. That lopsided score might have led to Boyle’s “denial” of his team’s soft three-point defense. But through six games, CU’s perimeter defensive percentage has been no better than 33.3 percent (vs. Wyoming).
“We ain’t guarding the three-point line,” CU guard Spencer Dinwiddie said. “Give credit to them, but most of (their shots) were open.”
Any list of Buffs’ deficiencies didn’t include Dinwiddie, who said he didn’t sense a pregame readiness from his teammates and chose to assert himself more than in the previous games. He did, scoring a game-best 24 points that included 14-of-15 made free throws.
The Buffs hit 12 of 14 free throws in the final 3:56, with Dinwiddie sinking nine of 10 in that span.
Said Boyle: “We don’t win tonight without Spencer Dinwiddie . . . he was dialed in, aggressive.”
The Buffs led 32-30 at halftime and opened a nine-point (45-36) second-half lead before the Gauchos stormed back. Brown’s final three of the game gave UCSB (2-2) a 54-52 lead with 5:48 to play. But CU (5-1) answered with a 12-0 run and never trailed again.
In addition to Dinwiddie’s 24, CU also got 14 points from Booker, his junior backcourt mate. They were the only two Buffs in double figures; leading scorer Josh Scott managed only three points on a conventional three-point play that started the 12-0 run. Boyle said one of his team’s goals was to go inside more, but when it happened the Buffs didn’t finish – and he wasn’t singling out Scott.
The Buffs outrebounded the Gauchos 34-25, made 12 steals – the most this season against UCSB – and forced 17 turnovers – another UCSB high mark. But Boyle kept coming back to the perimeter defense and CU allowing the visitors to shoot 53.3 percent from the field in the second half.
A Friday morning practice originally scheduled to be a shoot-around has been reset as a full-blown run. “I don’t want our players to have a sense of entitlement,” he said. “I don’t want them to show up and play like this and think it’s OK . . . maybe I’m getting too soft as a coach.”
After a two-game absence, CU got sophomore forward Xavier Johnson back in its starting lineup. “XJ” had taken an elbow to the head in a practice prior to the Jackson State game (Nov. 16). “XJ” finished with nine points, five rebounds, two assists, three turnovers and three steals.
The Buffs outscored the Gauchos 7-2 to open the second half and took a 39-32 lead, matching their largest advantage of the night to that point, with 15:47 remaining. CU wasn’t satisfied; layups by freshmen Jaron Hopkins and George King helped fashion a nine-point lead (45-36) at the 12:05 mark.
But it had been a while since the Gauchos hit a three-pointer. Paging Taran Brown . . . he ended that dry spell with a trey from the left wing, tying his career high with six threes. When Kyle Boswell followed with a three-pointer on the next possession, UCSB pulled within a point (45-44), then got to 52-51 on another Boswell triple with just under 7 minutes to play.
The Gauchos weren’t going away and they weren’t going to stop shooting the long ball. When Brown hit his seventh of the game at 5:48, UCSB went up 54-52. But urgency also might have overtaken the Buffs; their 12-0 run put them ahead 64-54 with 3:56 remaining.
Unless UCSB could go on another three-point binge, CU seemed headed for its fifth straight win. The Gauchos got one more three-ball by Michael Bryson – their 11th of the night – and closed to 71-67 with 33.9 seconds to play. Dinwiddie’s two free throws 4.5 seconds later and two more by Tre’Shaun Fletcher put the Buffs up 75-67 – and the Gauchos were done.
The Buffs conclude their six-game home stand with a Sunday afternoon game against Harvard (2:30 p.m., ESPNU). “The price of poker is going up and we’d better be ready to ante up,” Boyle said, adding that if Thursday night’s effort and preparation are replayed on Sunday his team faces trouble.
Boyle took this from the Buffs’ rigorous preseason session with the Navy SEALS: “You don’t rise to the occasion, you fall back to your level of preparation.” Friday morning’s practice just might reflect that.
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Contact: BG.Brooks@Colorado.EDU
It wasn’t pretty but CU men got a good win
Nov 19th
Buffs Keep Growing In Run Past Red Wolves
by B.G. Brooks
CUBuffs.com contributing editor
BOULDER – Colorado’s young Buffs are growing up, which means an occasional pain or two. For now, it’s nothing they can’t tolerate but it won’t stay that way much longer.
Ebbing and flowing Monday night at the Coors Events Center, CU alternately buried and revived Arkansas State before finally putting down the talented Red Wolves 93-70.
“Obviously, we’re happy with a 23-point win,” Buffs coach Tad Boyle said. “That was the good news. But I think again, like most games we’ve played this year, there’s a lot of things we can take from this one and learn from and get better from. And I think the thing that stands out for me tonight was defensive intensity.
“I thought we let up a little bit the first part of that second half, and part of that credit goes to Arkansas State. They’ve got good players; we knew that coming in . . . but we’ve got to have that killer instinct defensively. We let up a little bit and let them back in it. But we gained control of it and I was proud of our guys. There’s a lot of good things to build on.”
Let the construction work continue.
The Buffs (4-1) led by 18 points at halftime, by 20 in the opening seconds of the second half, then by only eight points with 13:30 remaining. Such are the mood swings for a team depending on four true freshman and a redshirt freshman for quality minutes.
CU ultimately took control against Arkansas State (2-2), which had lost 85-64 at Wyoming on Sunday, but it took a Spencer Dinwiddie three-pointer with 10:09 to play to restore a double-digit lead (68-56) and allow the Buffs to rediscover how to hit the accelerator. Dinwiddie, one of four CU players in double figures, had another fine floor game, hitting four of five field goal attempts (two-of-two threes) and three of four free throws for 13 points. He also had a game-high five assists and two steals.
Spencer Dinwiddie made a three-pointer with 10:09 to play to restore a double-digit lead (68-56)
But the Buffs’ high-point man was their growing low-post presence, Josh Scott, the 6-10 sophomore. His 20 points were one short of his career high. “They had a 6-7, although he was 250 pounds, and a 6-10 – but they were single-covering me and they weren’t digging hard,” Scott said. “If you’re going to give me that, I’m probably going to score. That’s pretty much all I can say about that.”
Also in double figures for the Buffs were freshmen George King (11) and Jaron Hopkins (10). Eleven of the 14 CU players in uniform scored, but for the second consecutive game the Buffs were without sophomore forward Xavier Johnson, who also missed Saturday’s game against Jackson State after being “dinged” in a late-week practice, according to Boyle.
Once again, Hopkins opened in Johnson’s place – and once again Hopkins was effective early, scoring five points on two free throws and a three-pointer in an 11-0 run that helped the Buffs open a 12-point (22-10) advantage. King also hit a pair of three-pointers during that surge and made good on a prophesy to roommate Tre’Shaun Fletcher.
“I noticed in warm-ups I wasn’t shooting the ball well, but in this one I focused on blocking everything out . . . . I told my roommate, ‘Fletch,’ I was going to hit a three in this game,” said King, who hit both of his three-point attempts as the Buffs hit nine for the second consecutive game.
But Boyle wasn’t necessarily pleased with that number, especially with the Buffs hitting only one of their first eight trey attempts and getting away from their offensive philosophy. They finished the half 6-of-15 from behind the arc and 9-of-23 for the game. Said Boyle: “I thought we got trigger happy in the first half with threes. We can’t live and die with those . . . we’re an inside-out team.”
Boyle previously had expressed a reluctance to have three freshmen on the court at the same time, but with Johnson out now for two games there is little choice at times. “I’d rather have it in a game like this,” Boyle said. “Hopefully in a couple of weeks I won’t look at them as freshmen. But our freshmen are growing up quick . . . tonight was another step in the right direction for them.”
CU trailed only once, allowing a trey by Melvin Johnson III – a 6-6 senior transfer from Texas-San Antonio – to open the scoring. Nothing out of the ordinary for Johnson; he entered the game having connected on 12-of-22 three-point tries in the Red Wolves’ first three games and was the team’s leading scorer (16.7 ppg).
He finished as Monday night’s leading scorer with 25 and teammate Brandon Reed added 21. But they were the only Red Wolves to score in the first half; their teammates went 0-for-13. Kirk Van Slyke, a 6-10 post, added 15 points, but aside from the Red Wolves’ brief second-half spurt they simply couldn’t keep pace with the Buffs’ mostly young guns.
CU pushed ahead 40-22 with 4:05 left before intermission, and at halftime, the Buffs were still up by 18 – 46-28. There was little reason to think the Red Wolves could catch up in the final 20 minutes, but they gave it a shot – a three-point shot. They hit five of their seven treys after intermission, pulling to within eight points twice before the Buffs decided ‘D’ might be necessary.
CU held A-State to 28.6 percent from the field (8-of-28) in the first 20 minutes, but 53.3 percent second-half shooting brought the Red Wolves to 41.4 percent for the game (24-of-58).
“I think we locked them up pretty well in first half . . . we chased them off the three-point line,” Scott said. “Coming out of the half, we didn’t find their shooters. They hit some good shots (but) we finally got locked in and got the win by a large margin.”
After Dinwiddie fed Hopkins for an alley-oop slam to open a 20-point lead (48-28) seconds into the second half, CU appeared to be cruising. But over the next 51/2 minutes, the Red Wolves outscored the Buffs 19-7, taking advantage of a familiar CU deficiency – perimeter defense.
A-State used four three-pointers during that span to pull to within 55-47 with just over 14 minutes remaining. But the visitors from Jonesboro, Ark., could get no closer than eight points the rest of the night.
The Buffs surged to a 25-point lead, 90-65, on a Beau Gamble-assisted Ben Mills stuff with 1:45 to play. Sophomore walk-on Brett Brady got the Buffs to 93 with a three-pointer in the final minute and the CEC crowd of 8,204 roared its approval.
Boyle wants the roaring – as well as the attendance – to increase. The Buffs’ six-game home stand begins to wind down Thursday when UC-Santa Barbara visits the CEC (6 p.m.). On Sunday afternoon (2:30 p.m.), Harvard visits, and Boyle said the Buffs need to “get our minds right” for both games.
“The last two weeks this team has gotten better,” he said. “You can feel it offensively and defensively (but) Santa Barbara is a different caliber team, Harvard is a different caliber team. We’ll find out in the next two games how great those strides have been.”
Contact: BG.Brooks@Colorado.EDU
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