Posts tagged OT
CU men dispatch lowly Utes in overtime
Feb 1st
By B.G. Brooks, CUBuffs.com Contributing Editor
BOULDER – It was the kind of game that Tad Boyle had challenged his team to win – down-and-dirty, back-and-forth, blink-and-you’re-done.
Boyle’s Colorado Buffaloes didn’t blink. Never considered it either. Down 12 points in the second half, the Buffs caught Utah, got caught by a late Utes 3-pointer, then mustered enough want-to to win 79-75 in overtime Saturday at the Coors Events Center.
“Holy cow,” Boyle said afterwards. “We needed that one bad and our guys responded . . . because of what we’ve been through, it doesn’t matter who you are, you need to win your games at home and hold serve. We dropped one already (to UCLA) we’d love to have back. But it doesn’t work that way so this was a big game for us.”
Maybe bigger than big; monstrous wouldn’t be an exaggeration.
Losers in four of their previous five games without Spencer Dinwiddie and Tre’Shaun Fletcher, the Buffs needed step-up performances from stand-in players and command performances from their veterans. Finally, the afternoon came together on both fronts.
CU (16-6 overall, 5-4 Pac-12) had five players in double figures – four of them starters and two of those (Xavier Johnson, Josh Scott) finishing with double-doubles. Scott scored a game-high 20 points and tied Johnson, who scored 11, with a game-best 10 rebounds. Forward Wesley Gordon added 12 points and six rebounds as the Buffs blasted the Utes on the boards, 42-24.
CU was no less productive in the backcourt, with guards Askia Booker and Xavier Talton combining for 32 points. Booker’s stat line was near staggering: 18 points, eight rebounds, seven of the Buffs’ 13 assists, 7-of-10 from the free throw line and one steal.
But it was Talton who might have been the Buffs’ biggest force. Scoring a career-high 14 points, the sophomore from Sterling hit back-to-back 3-pointers during a 14-2 second-half run that brought CU back from its 12-point deficit. He also opened the OT scoring with another trey –
– as the Buffs finally put away the Utes (14-7, 3-6).
Talton, who with an angry cut under his left eye looked as if he’d gone 10 rounds in the ring rather than 22 minutes on the court, said he’d never experienced such a game – “Not on both ends. I think everybody just found me and I was feeling more confident. Just being in the gym this last week we talked about competing . . . we’ve been in the guy shooting a lot, so I think that’s something that’s helped out.”
The Buffs needed good rhythm and good vibes – more than desperately – and ultimately found both. At home for three games, CU couldn’t afford a loss to Utah to precede visits by Washington State (Wednesday, 7:30 p.m., Pac-12 Network) and Washington (Sunday, Feb. 9, 6 p.m., ESPNU).
“This was a big game no matter how many we’d won or lost before,” Scott said. “It was a home game and you need to win at home. So, to me it was a next step for this team . . . a big step forward and hopefully it can keep going forward from here.”
Somewhere down the line – March perhaps? – losing at home to Utah would have left a bad mark. The Buffs had beaten the Utes in six of seven previous meetings, and Utah came to Boulder with a five-game road losing streak and having lost 10 road games in a row stretching to last season.
Those streaks almost ended at the CEC. After CU rallied from its 47-35 deficit to tie the score at 49-49 on the second of Talton’s back-to-back treys, Utah stayed close in the final 10 minutes and sent the game into overtime on Brandon Taylor’s fifth 3-pointer with 6 seconds left in regulation.
Utah had come into the game shooting 34 percent from beyond the arc, but the Utes shot 50 percent (four-of-eight) from long range in the first half and finished the game at 45.8 percent (11-of-24). Taylor and Delon Wright finished with 17 points each, with the versatile Wright adding 11 assists and seven steals – five of those in the first half.
They contributed to CU’s 10 first-half turnovers that produced 17 Utah points. But the Buffs settled themselves in the second half, committing only five more miscues, and amped up their board work to finish with a 42-24 advantage.
“We got out-rebounded by 18 – that’s the difference in the ball game,” said Utah coach Larry Krystkowiak. “Getting exposed in our last two games by that number of offensive rebounds by the other team, we don’t have a chance to compete against anybody.”
Boyle, meanwhile, called gathering offensive boards a large part of the mental makeup he’s been calling for: “Toughness shows up in rebounding stats . . . plus-18, that was the difference in the game.”
The Buffs fell behind 4-0, but quickly gathered themselves and led by as many as seven points on three occasions before the Utes stormed back with a 14-0 run and went up 33-26 with 2:53 left before halftime.
Utah stretched its lead to 12 by outscoring CU 10-4 to open the second half. The Utes added to their 3-point field goal total, getting a trey from Wright that followed a conventional three-point play by 7-foot center Dallin Bachynski, whose 7-2 older brother plays for Arizona State.
Down by 12 with 16:42 to play, the Buffs were sliding toward the abyss, but they never got there.
A 6-0 run – courtesy of two free throws by Xavier Johnson and baskets by Gordon and Eli Stalzer – sliced the Utes’ lead in half (47-41). And just over 3 minutes later, a 3-pointer by Xavier Talton from the left wing brought the Buffs to within 49-46 with 12:05 to play.
“You always want people to step up when their number is called,” Talton said. “I think Eli did a good job of that when he came in (and) Wesley definitely did on the boards getting the put backs and everything . . . Xavier Johnson as well. I think that if we continue to share the ball the sky’s the limit for our team.”
And “XT” wasn’t done; his trey from the left corner – set up by a Booker inside-out assist – completed a 14-2 CU run and tied the score at 49-49 at the 11:11 mark.
The last 10 minutes produced six lead changes and five ties – the final one at 62-62 after a Booker follow shot was waived off when the officials ruled the shot clock had expired.
After that, Gordon hit one of two free throws with 25 seconds left and Scott hit both of his after a Utah turnover with 19.2 seconds showing. The Buffs were up 65-62, but at the 6-second mark, Taylor drained his fourth trey of the game, tying the score and leaving time for a straightaway Booker 30-footer as time expired.
It bounded off the back of the rim and OT was next. Talton’s fourth trey of the afternoon put CU up 68-65 and Utah never caught up. After Talton added a 15-foot jumper to send the Buffs up 73-69, Booker hit five of six free throws in the OT’s final 45.8 seconds and Johnson added one of two. Another late Taylor trey pulled the Utes to 79-75 – but this one was over.
Boyle said he was most proud of Johnson’s performance and the maturity the sophomore is showing: “He’s a guy I challenged. He doesn’t like sitting on the bench but when he gives you the kind of effort he did today on both ends of the floor and rebounding the basketball, holy cow is he good.”
While conceding the game’s importance and what it might mean to the remainder of the home stand and season, Boyle refrained from calling it a “must-win.” Instead, he pared it down to this: “I want to talk about the ‘must’ possessions, because if you take care of the ‘must’ possessions the wins take care of themselves. And so do the losses when you don’t.”
More often than not on Saturday, the “must” possessions went to CU. And eventually, so did the “W.”
CU Men Fall To ASU In OT On Buzzer-Beating Layup
Feb 17th
By B.G. Brooks, CUBuffs.com Contributing Editor
BOULDER – A Saturday night of bumping, grinding, pounding and flailing ended with a soft buzzer-beating layup. And that ended the night badly for the Colorado Buffaloes.
Arizona State’s Evan Gordon split CU’s defense down the right lane, driving for the game-winning basket in overtime as the Sun Devils stunned the Buffs 63-62 at the sold-out, bummed-out Coors Events Center.
“Welcome to college football . . . I thought the season was over in December,” said disgruntled CU coach Tad Boyle. “It was an unbelievable physical game, the most physical game I’ve ever been a part of – college, high school, YMCA.”
CU freshman Josh Scott took the brunt of the night’s physicality. Matched against Jordan Bachynski, Scott and the 7-2, 250-pound ASU center became entangled and spun to the floor with 16:02 remaining in the second half.
Bachynski got up, Scott didn’t. Motioned to come to the court by CU players, trainer Trey Tashiro rushed to attend to Scott. When Scott was able to sit up and finally stand, Tashiro escorted him to the locker room, where he remained for the rest of the game.
Boyle said Scott, after catching an elbow to the head, “blacked out and got a concussion.” Further tests are scheduled to determine Scott’s status for Thursday’s game against Utah (CEC, 8 p.m., Pac-12 Network).
Boyle credited Arizona State but said the night’s rough-and-tumble play and the scarcity of blown whistles – 35 fouls were called and maybe that many or more uncalled – “affected both teams . . . I thought our guys reacted well and played their hearts out. I had no problem with their effort and energy; they did everything we asked them to do on defense.”
He called Gordon’s drive “a hell of a play . . . a bang-bang play and we weren’t able to stop them.”
On ASU’s winning possession, which started with 8.3 seconds left after Spencer Dinwiddie’s layup gave CU a 62-61 lead, Buffs sophomore Askia Booker he and his teammates were aware of Sun Devils point guard Jahi Carson.
Boyle said the Buffs wanted to “get the ball out of (Carson’s) hands, and Booker added, “I think Jahi is so great with ball and can create his own shot, everybody was looking to him. Gordon had a straight-line drive . . . we just didn’t guard the ball well enough.”
Saturday night’s bitter defeat came two nights after CU had shocked No. 9 Arizona. Losing for the first time in four games, the Buffs fell to 17-8 overall and 7-6 in the Pac-12 Conference. ASU, which defeated CU 65-56 in Tempe last month, improved to 19-7, 8-5. Saturday night marked CU’s sixth sellout at the CEC this season, breaking the school record of five set in 2010-11.
The Buffs rallied to win close games last week at then-No. 19 Oregon and Oregon State, which left Boyle philosophical about Saturday night’s loss. “We stole two games in Oregon,” he said. “I can’t get too down . . . (but) it stinks. It’s college athletics and losing is no fun. The guys in our locker room are hurting, I’m hurting, our staff is hurting and BuffsNation is hurting.”
A foul-line jumper by Andre Roberson gave CU a 60-59 lead with 1:46 remaining in overtime, but Carson banked in a runner from the right side to push the Sun Devils ahead 61-60.
Boyle called a timeout but the Buffs went empty on that possession. At the other end, Carrick Felix missed two free throws with 24 seconds to play, giving the Buffs a chance.
Dinwiddie took it, making a layup to put CU up 62-61 with 8.3 seconds left. But the Buffs couldn’t cut off Gordon’s drive to the basket, and his layup trickled in as time expired, sucking the life out of the CEC.
Dinwiddie led CU with 24 points, with Booker adding 17 and Xavier Johnson 10. Carson’s 18 topped ASU, with Gordon scoring 14 and Bachynski 12.
Behind 15 rebounds by Roberson and 14 by Johnson, the Buffs won the board battle 41-26. Roberson collected 14 of his rebounds in the second half. The Sun Devils shot 46 percent from the field, the Buffs 35.1 percent. ASU’s biggest statistical edge was in the paint – 30-20.
CU trailed for the final 6:38 of regulation and had only one field goal from the 5:33 mark until a pair in the final 46.6 seconds by Booker and Johnson. It was Johnson’s dunk on a dish from Dinwiddie that tied the score at 54-54 and sent the game into overtime.
While the Buffs were struggling to hit a shot in the final 5 minutes, Dinwiddie hit 10 of 10 free throws before the baskets by Booker and Johnson. Dinwiddie finished 14-of-14 from the line.
The Buffs ran hot and cold in the first half, encountering a pair of scoring droughts and winding up three points behind (27-24) at halftime. That’s not to say Arizona didn’t have its first-half offensive troubles; the Sun Devils went 7:18 without a point and the Buffs took advantage, rolling to a 22-15 advantage behind the three-point shooting of Dinwiddie and Xavier Talton.
But as quickly as that seven-point lead appeared, it evaporated in the half’s final 4:10 as Arizona closed with a 12-2 run. In home games this season in which they trailed at halftime, the Buffs had been 1-1 (beating Texas Southern, losing to UCLA). Now they’re 1-2.
In most areas, CU clearly needed a quick reversal to open the second half. Less than two minutes in, Booker tied the score at 27-27 with a three-pointer from the left wing. But a rough patch – literally – was coming for the Buffs.
Inside play had been physical from the opening tip, with Bachynski trying to overpower Scott from the outset. Their duel intensified in the second half’s first 4 minutes, resulting in the entanglement that took Scott out of the game.
In Scott’s absence, the Buffs used 6-11 Shane Harris-Tunks and the 6-7 Roberson on Bachynski. By this time, the sold-out CEC was doing its part, but both teams were still having difficulty on the offensive end – mainly because anything seemed to be allowed on the defensive end.
With 7:11 to play, the score was tied at 38-38, and if the Buffs were going to win this one it wouldn’t be done softly.
A trey by Jonathan Gilling gave ASU a 41-38 advantage, then he added a pair of free throws to put the Sun Devils up by five (45-40) – their largest lead of the night – with 5:01 to play.
After Arizona went ahead 47-42, Dinwiddie hit four consecutive free throws to pull CU to within 47-46 with 3:56 to play. Just over a minute later, Gordon’s three-pointer from the right wing gave the Sun Devils a 50-46 advantage, but once again Dinwiddie cut CU’s deficit to 50-48 with a pair of free throws. Bachynski, who had missed a pair of foul shots at the 3:36 mark, hit a pair with 1:50 showing – and down 52-48, the Buffs were in trouble. It deepened when Carson sank another pair with 1:19 left, putting CU six points (54-48) down.
All that was keeping the Buffs afloat were Dinwiddie’s free throws – he got two more at 1:15 – until Booker hit a runner in the lane to bring the Buffs to within 54-52. It was CU’s first field goal since 5:33, that coming on another Booker basket.
ASU called timeout with 34.7 on the game clock and 24 seconds on the shot clock. The Sun Devils took the shot clock to zero, leaving the Buffs with 10.6 seconds to tie or win.
Dinwiddie fought his way through a double team to get the inbounds pass, raced up court and after going airborne, dished to Xavier Johnson for a stuff. It was 54-54 with 2.5 seconds to play.
ASU’s Carrick Felix got off a shot at the buzzer, but it bounded off the back iron. OT, along with heartache for the Buffs, were on the way.
Booker said the Buffs missed Scott “without a doubt. He’s our low-post presence . . . Coach told us it would be a physical game and that (Bachynski) would be one of the best players we’d face. We did pretty well with him.”
After scoring 16 points, grabbing seven rebounds and blocking nine shots in the first meeting, Bachynski line read 12, 3 and 3 in those categories Saturday night.
Boyle told his team that “every game from here on out is going to be like this . . . we’re 0-2 against Arizona State, but guess what? We’ve still got a conference tournament.”
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Buffs Fall To Wildcats In OT After Controversial Call
Jan 4th
The Buffs believed they had won when senior Sabatino Chen banked in a three-pointer at the final buzzer in regulation of their Pac-12 Conference opener. But after conferring with the timekeepers and watching the replay monitor at McKale Arena, officials disallowed Chen’s shot and the game went into OT.
Shown a replay of Chen’s trey before his postgame interview with KOA Radio, CU coach Tad Boyle said, “That just makes me sick to my stomach . . . I’m sick to my stomach because I think our team deserved to win that game. But we didn’t and we have to move on from it.”
Boyle said he was proud of his team and that it “had that game won in a lot of ways.” He also promised the Buffs would move on, but they also would remember: “We’re not going to move on as, ‘Oh, were going to forget about it and move on.’ We’re going to remember this because you have to remember this feeling. If it doesn’t hurt in the pit of your stomach and you’re not a little bit pissed off then something is wrong with you.”
In the overtime, it was all Wildcats, who trailed by as many as 17 points in the first half and 16 in the second. Less than a minute into overtime, they took their first lead since 5-4 on a three-point play by Kevin Parrom to make it 83-82.
The Buffs tied it at 83-83 on one of two free throws by Xavier Johnson, who made his first career start in place of Chen. But CU didn’t score again. Arizona – beaten twice by CU last season, the final time for the Pac-12 tournament title – got nine more points and rolled to its first 13-0 start since 1931-32.
The Buffs (10-3, 0-1) play at Arizona State on Sunday at 6 p.m.
Five CU players scored in double figures, topped by Askia Booker’s 18. Freshman Josh Scott and Chen scored 15 each – a career-high for Chen – while Johnson had 13 and Spencer Dinwiddie 11.
Arizona’s Mark Lyons, who sent the game into overtime with a pair of free throws with 9.2 seconds left in regulation, led all scorers with 24 points. He made all 10 of his free throw attempts, while CU hit 17-of-29. In the final 1:44 of regulation, holding a seven-point lead, the Buffs made only three of eight free throw attempts.
“You have to look at the free throws,” Boyle said. “We shot 58 percent for the game; we got away with that earlier in the year at times but tonight we didn’t get away with it, it cost us the game. And I’m not talking any one guy, I’m talking about as a team. So, you’ve got to look at what you can do better, and that is what we can do.”
CU committed only 11 turnovers, but four of them came in the final 2 minutes when Arizona was catching up. Counting the 5 extra minutes, the Wildcats outscored the Buffs 22-5 in the final 6:44. Boyle said he thought his team “got a little soft defensively at the end. Second half they shot 60 percent from the field and we’re one stop away from that game, we’re one or two free throws away from that game . . .
“I asked our guys to play hard, play smart, and to play together. I thought we played hard, I thought we played together, I thought at times we didn’t play smart and those are the things we have to learn as a young team on the road in an environment like this.”
The Buffs, who led by 10 points with 1:53 remaining in regulation, played the extra period minus Andre Roberson. He fouled out in the final 2 minutes of regulation with nine points and 11 rebounds.
For the first time since the opening game, Boyle changed his starting lineup, inserting the 6-6 freshmen Johnson in the place of the 6-4 senior Chen. And Boyle’s move paid immediate dividends as the Buffs started fast by slowing it down. CU controlled the pace and led by as many as 17 points (30-13) with 4:30 remaining in the first half.
CU pulled away with a 15-1 run, and “XJ” was instrumental in that spurt. After opening the scoring with a layup, he finished the half with 12 points, including a pair of the Buffs’ six three-pointers that tied their season high. They finished 10-of-21 from beyond the arc.
But CU was certain that Arizona would snap to life, and it happened in the half’s final 4:30. After their long drought (three field goals) in the opening 15 minutes, the Wildcats closed the half on a 14-4 run and trailed by only 7 (34-27) at intermission.
Helping Johnson with CU’s first-half scoring load was Booker, who contributed three of the Buffs’ treys and finished the half with 11 points. But a Booker miscue in the final 25 seconds also helped the Wildcats boost their momentum heading into their locker room. At the 3.5 second mark, a Booker turnover and subsequent foul sent Nick Johnson to the foul line.
He hit both free throws with 2.2 seconds showing, cutting the Buffs’ lead to 34-27 and finally awakening the McHale Center crowd. But Arizona’s total tied for its lowest of the season, and it matched its field goal total with seven turnovers.
The Buffs opened the second half with the same intensity as they did the first, outscoring the Wildcats 7-0 on two free throws by Scott, a three-pointer by Roberson from the right corner on an assist by Booker and a Roberson throw-down in transition on a sweet lob by Dinwiddie.
CU was up again by 14 (43-29), but the Buffs knew they couldn’t rest on that margin. And other factors came into play: About 51/2 minutes in, both teams had to sit a star each. Roberson went to his bench with three fouls and Solomon Hill to his with four fouls.
After Arizona pulled to within 10 (45-35), Chen replaced Roberson and promptly contributed a conventional three-point play, then hit a trey from the left corner as the Buffs went back ahead by 16 (56-40).
The Buffs were expecting a Wildcats run, but they withstood this one. Just shy of the 10-minute mark, Chen delivered another trey to push CU up 59-49, and the Buffs held that 10-point margin until Lyons hit a layup and Hill followed with a three-pointer.
Suddenly, Arizona was within six (64-58) with just over 6 minutes left.
No sweat for Chen. He hit consecutive layups – the second on a goal-tending call – to restore a double-digit CU lead (68-58) with 41/2 to play. The Buffs kept that 10-point advantage (73-63) on a trey by Booker from the left wing with 2:47 left.
Booker hit two free throws at the 1:53 mark for another 10-point CU lead (75-65), but a traditional three-point play by Lyons pulled the Wildcats to within 75-68 with 1:49 remaining.
With 1:33 left, Arizona trimmed CU’s lead to 78-73 on a three-pointer by Hill, then to 78-74 on one of two free throws by Johnson as Roberson committed a turnover and fouled out. The Wildcats caught the Buffs at 80-80 on Lyons’ pair of free throws, setting up Chen’s nullified three-pointer at the buzzer.
And if the replay monitor wasn’t kind to the Buffs, neither was overtime.
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