CU Men’s Basketball
CU men fall to Arizona in PAC-12 tourney
Mar 15th
Courtesy: B.G. Brooks, Contributing Editor
Still holding hopes for a wild card berth in the NCAA tournament
LAS VEGAS – Let the waiting game begin. A year ago, the Colorado Buffaloes wrung the suspense out of Selection Sunday by winning the Pac-12 Conference Tournament and earning an automatic berth in the NCAA Tournament.
This year, it’s not that clear-cut, although the Buffs believe their NCAA case has been stated – even in Thursday’s 79-69 quarterfinal loss to No. 18 Arizona in the Pac-12 Conference Tournament.
Colorado’s Spencer Dinwiddie shoots a free throw. He scored 18 points for the Buffs
No. 5 seed CU rallied dramatically, cutting a 14-point lead by No. 4 seed Arizona to two in the final 63 seconds. But the Wildcats held on and left the Buffs holding their collective breath for one of 37 NCAA at-large bids.
“We’re one of the top 37 teams in my mind,” said CU coach Tad Boyle. “But it’s not for me to say.”
But Boyle did cite his argument for the Buffs, who finished 21-11 for their third consecutive 20-win season under Boyle. Last March, after punching the Pac-12’s free ticket, they advanced to the NCAA second round before being eliminated by Baylor in Albuquerque.
This March, Boyle cited CU’s strength of schedule (No. 19), the overall strength of the Pac-12 this season, CU’s league-low 15 home games and the return of Andre Roberson as reasons for the Buffs to be given strong NCAA consideration.
The Buffs finished the season 4-3 against Top 25 teams and were 9-9 against opponents in the top 100 RPI. CU’s pre-game RPI on Thursday was in the low 30s. It all appears to give the Buffs strong NCAA credentials. Yet as Boyle said, inclusion in the 68-team NCAA field isn’t for him or his players to determine despite “what we did over our whole body of work.”
Their work finished in dramatic if unfulfilling fashion as the Buffs overcame an enigmatic and sloppy start to push the Wildcats harder than they might have expected after the first 20 minutes.
Arizona, said Boyle, “played a hell of a game. You could tell from the very beginning they were ready to go.” But it took more than a little while for the Buffs to find the same gear; they trailed 39-28 after a first half that saw them commit 10 of their 13 turnovers (leading to 15 first-half Arizona points) and hit only five of 12 free throw attempts.
With 12:24 left in the game, CU fell behind by 14 before tightening up its defense, rebounding more tenaciously and eventually closing to within 71-69 on a pair of Andre Roberson free throws with 1:03 remaining. But Arizona’s Nick Johnson scored a layup between two CU defenders at the other end to push the Wildcats up four.
Then two free throws by Mark Lyons with 23.6 seconds left gave Arizona a comfortable six-point advantage. The Wildcats added four more free throws in the final 14.2 seconds to win by double digits.
“Coach Boyle always preaches defend and rebound, and I felt like that’s when started to do that and we had a run,” said Roberson, who collected his 37th career double-double (15 points, 11 rebounds). “I feel like we just didn’t do it consistently throughout the whole 40 minutes. That’s how we fell off in the first half, and that’s how we got back into the game in the second half.”
CU outrebounded Arizona 33-31, but allowed the Wildcats to shoot 45.2 percent for the game. The Buffs’ goal is to hold opponents below 40 percent from the field. Arizona also got 25 points from a bench that Boyle says offers “the most quality depth of anybody in our league . . . they go ten deep.”
When the Buffs were surging back, Wildcats’ guard Mark Lyons hit what Boyle called “the play of the game.” With a second showing on the shot clock and Arizona cradling a 68-64 lead, Lyons (14 points, three assists, one steal) took an inbounds pass and fired from the left corner. It swished and CU’s momentum took a hit.
Boyle called the quick inbounds play “a breakdown on our part defensively. We’ve practiced that situation. We just didn’t do what we were supposed to do and it cost us.”
Just over a minute later, after the Buffs had pulled to 71-69, Nick Johnson scored between Roberson and Xavier Johnson to push the Wildcats back up by four. Roberson said Nick Johnson “was stuck in the key looking for a teammate . . . he didn’t have any other option but to go up with it. Maybe I could have been a little more aggressive, but ‘XJ’ was trapping him. He just made a tough shot.”
The fourth-seeded Wildcats (25-6) play top-seeded UCLA (24-8) in one of Friday’s semifinals at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, which saw a record crowd of 12,915 on Thursday afternoon.
CU, which defeated Arizona 53-51 last season for the inaugural Pac-12 championship in Los Angeles, was led by Spencer Dinwiddie with 18 points. Askia Booker contributed 12 and Xavier Johnson 11. Arizona had three players in double figures, topped by Nick Johnson’s 18. The Wildcats hit nine of their 27 three-point attempts, while the Buffs were 5-of-12 from beyond the arc.
The Buffs took their only lead of the game on the first possession, getting a dunk from Dinwiddie on a baseline drive. From there, the afternoon looked as if it belonged to Arizona. The first half’s last half minute providing a snapshot of the Buffs’ early deficiencies. After closing to within eight (36-28) on a put-back by Roberson, CU forced a turnover and had possession with 23.8 seconds left before the break.
But Sabatino Chen couldn’t in-bound the ball in the allotted five seconds and Arizona regained possession. The Wildcats worked the clock to five seconds before Solomon Hill drove the lane for a layup. Roberson fouled him and Hill converted the three-point play, saddling CU with its second-worst (11 points) halftime deficit of the season.
The worst was 19 at Kansas, and that game didn’t end well for CU – a 90-54 smack down in Allen Fieldhouse.
CU’s bench, which was outscored 18-4 in the first half, took a hit when 6-11 Shane Harris-Tunks was hit in the head with 12:45 left before the break. He went to the locker room for evaluation and was not cleared to play in the second half.
Asked about Harris-Tunks’ condition, Boyle said, “Let me say this about Shane: We’ve had two blatant no-calls that have led to concussions on our basketball team (Josh Scott was the other) and I’m really disappointed about it.”
Harris-Tunks’ departure and two early fouls on the 6-10 Scott resulted in five rare first-half minutes for 7-0 junior Ben Mills, who had one point and two rebounds in that time. Boyle said he was “proud of him for doing it tonight in a very tough environment.”
With 12:24 remaining, a three-pointer from the left corner by Jordin Mayes pushed the Wildcats ahead 54-40. If the Buffs couldn’t see trouble ahead, they weren’t looking. But maybe that was a good thing.
Down by 14 after Mayes’ trey, Dinwiddie hit a pair of free throws, Xavier Talton scored a layup on a fast break, and Dinwiddie knocked down a three in transition.
Suddenly, Arizona’s 14-point led had been cut in half (56-47) with 10 minutes to play. The Buffs pulled to within four three times in the final 3:13, the last time on a Booker three with 1:50 remaining. After an Arizona turnover 30 seconds later, Boyle – with his team trailing 71-67 – called a timeout. Roberson’s two foul shots made it a two-point game, but that was as close as the Buffs could get.
Arizona coach Sean Miller said the Wildcats “beat an excellent basketball team . . . we needed to play extremely hard to beat a team like Colorado. You think about Colorado being seeded fifth, it really shows the depth and quality of our conference from top to bottom.”
Boyle and the Buffs hope the NCAA Selection Committee sees it that way, but they’ll have to wait to find out.
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CU gets payback for home loss, advances PAC-12 tournament to another possible payback
Mar 14th
The opportunity for payback came quickly for the Colorado Buffaloes and they didn’t let it pass. Beaten and embarrassed last weekend on their home court by lowly Oregon State, the Buffs regrouped and eliminated the Beavers 74-68 on Wednesday in the first round of the Pac-12 Conference Tournament.
And the second round brings another opponent the Buffs and their fans might always feel is owed a little something.
No. 5 seeded CU (21-10) advances to face No. 4 seed Arizona (24-6) on Thursday. The Buffs and Wildcats split their two regular-season meetings, each team winning at home but Arizona needing a disallowed three-pointer at the buzzer to win in the teams’ conference opener in overtime in Tucson.
Colorado’s Spencer Dinwiddie shoots a free throw
“Yeah, we do feel like we’re 2-0 (against the Wildcats),” said CU sophomore guard Spencer Dinwiddie, who led the Buffs with 20 points on Wednesday, including eight straight after the Beavers had pulled to within a point in the second half. “We don’t go back and cry over spilled milk. We know it goes in the record book as a loss.
“But a lot of people around the country have the same feeling that we do. Even some of their players do because
we kind of talked about it on the floor last time (in CU’s 71-58 Valentine’s Night win in Boulder).”
Game three of the growing rivalry tips Thursday at 3:30 p.m. MDT (Pac-12 Network) in the MGM Grand Garden Arena. “I think there is a lot of mutual respect between the programs, and I respect their coach and their coaching staff,” CU coach Tad Boyle said. “I think what we did last year, and this year and these young men sitting beside me, I think we’ve earned some respect as well. So I look for a heck of a game.”
CU defeated Arizona twice last season, the final time (53-51) for the inaugural Pac-12 championship in Los Angeles. Out of that game, followed by Sabatino Chen’s waived-off buzzer beater on Jan. 3 in Tucson, burst a rivalry.
But to force another meeting, the Buffs had to dispose of the Beavers (14-18) Wednesday. And in Boyle’s words, the disposal process was unsightly. “Sometimes in tournament games you’ve got to win ugly,” he said, adding he couldn’t remember when his team shot from beyond the three-point arc (43.8 percent) than in front of it (39.3).
But in the second game with OSU in five days, CU had something that was missing on Saturday in Boulder – junior forward Andre Roberson, who returned after missing two games with a viral illness. He scored 12 points, added seven rebounds and, according to OSU coach Craig Robinson, was Wednesday’s difference-maker.
Asked that specifically, Robinson answered, “Is that a trick question, or did you not see Andre Roberson out there?”
Without ‘Dre’ last Saturday, the Buffs were outrebounded by the Beavers 38-32. With him back in the lineup, and with Josh Scott contributing 10 boards – eight big ones in the first half – and Xavier Johnson getting eight more, CU outrebounded OSU 43-30.
Roberson also was enough of an inside presence on the defensive end to help limit the Beavs to 39.7 percent from the field. He also contributed to CU having an 18-12 advantage in second-chance points.
“Roberson gave them a different look,” said OSU guard Roberto Nelson, who led his team with 20 points. “He does a lot for their team. There’s a reason he’s one of the best players in the league.”
But ‘Dre’ said he didn’t feel like that in his return to the court. “I was just trying to work myself back into shape and get the rustiness out,” he said, undoubtedly alluding to his five turnovers. “When you haven’t played in a long time, hadn’t touched the ball or run or anything . . . hey, I was relying on one day and that was (Tuesday). I felt like I did a pretty good job actually.”
He entered the tournament as the nation’s leading rebounder (11.5 rpg) and said this of Wednesday’s effort: “I slacked a little bit on the rebounding end. But I’ll pick it up (Thursday).”
In addition to Dinwiddie’s 20 and Roberson’s 12, CU got 16 points from Johnson and eight first-half points off the bench from Jeremy Adams, who continues to be a late-season force. Boyle said Adams “gave us some great first-half minutes . . . he made some shots (and) is a lockdown-type defender. I think I’d put him in there with ‘Sab’ (Sabatino Chen) and Andre in terms of his understanding of our defensive concept.”
Roberson, the Pac-12’s Defensive Player of The Year, knocked down a three-pointer followed by a pair of free throws that gave the Buffs a 12-point lead (61-49) with 2:43 remaining. It was CU’s largest advantage of the afternoon, with Roberson’s trey the Buffs’ final field goal of the game.
Oregon State pulled to within five points in the final three minutes, but CU hit 15 of 21 throws in the last 2:43 to advance against No. 18 Arizona. The Buffs are 4-2 against ranked opponents this season, their most wins in that category since the 2002-03 season.
After a back-and-forth first half Wednesday, the Buffs took 32-26 lead at intermission – and they did it dramatically. After a Beavers turnover with 1.1 seconds remaining, Chen inbounded the ball just across the mid-court line to Dinwiddie, who cleared himself to shoot with two dribbles and let his shot fly.
The horn sounded with the ball in the air – and CU had its fourth (and longest) three-pointer of the first half in 11 attempts.
Said Dinwiddie: “I just wanted to get open and get it up there . . . It gave us momentum; they had just come back.”
Prior to their six-point halftime advantage, the Buffs had led by as many as seven before the Beavs regrouped and tied the score at 23-23 with a 7-0 run. They made it a 10-2 spurt and went up 26-25 before CU closed out the half with a short jumper by Scott, a pair of free throws by Chen and Dinwiddie’s half-court swish.
At tip-off all CU eyes were on Roberson, who was cleared to play in the tournament on Tuesday morning. Roberson started, took a break at the 14:23 mark, then reentered the game with 12:13 remaining.
But less than three minutes later, with 10:47 left before intermission, Roberson picked up his second personal foul and went to the bench for the remainder of the half. If he needed rest, he hadn’t figured on getting it this way. He finished the half with two points and one rebound in seven minutes.
Oregon State, which defeated CU 64-58 last Saturday, crept to within 53-46 before Askia Booker hit a triple to put the Buffs back in front by double-digits (56-46). Booker had been scoreless (0-8 from the field) until that basket.
“I mentioned to our staff in the locker room (that) he was one-for-nine,” said Boyle, “but the one he hit was a big-time shot.”
Still, the Beavers were intent on making it a close game. When Ahmad Starks drained a three with 1:54 to play, his team trailed by only 63-57, and a trey by Eric Moreland (14 points, 13 rebounds) made it a five-point game (65-60) with 1:35 left.
A three-point play by Nelson pulled the Beavs to 72-68 in the final 10 seconds, but Dinwiddie’s final pair of free throws with 6.5 left sealed it and sent the Buffs into Thursday’s second round against the Wildcats.
Dinwiddie said the Buffs “have to stick with what we do – hold them to under 40 percent field goal percentage and outrebound them. (Then) we have a good shot at winning the game. That’s pretty much our focus every game. They’re a team that plays pretty stout defense. I guess a lot of people kind of say they’ve turned into our rivals because we’ve faced them so many times . . . faced them in the (Pac-12) championship last year. They’re always a great match up.”
Added Roberson: “They’re a great program. They play just like us – same philosophies. It’s like the cat going to get the mice; we’ve got to come hungry . . . and be ready to play.”
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Andre Roberson is named PAC-12 defensive player of the year
Mar 11th
DINWIDDIE, SCOTT EARN ALL-PAC-12 HONORS
The standout from San Antonio, Texas, is CU’s first-ever defensive player of the year award recipient. Roberson was also named one of 10 players to the conference first team, in addition to being named one of the five players to the all-defensive team.
It’s the second year the conference coaches have named Roberson a first-team and all-defensive team selection.
It’s official: Andre Roberson is the best defender in PAC-12 conference
Roberson (6’7”, 210-pound, San Antonio, Texas/Wagner HS) was a force on defense for CU this season, as the Buffs limited their opponents to a Pac-12 low 62.2 points per game in league play. He led the conference with 11.5 rebounds and 2.3 steals per game, while also contributing 1.4 blocked shots per game (8th in the Pac-12). His 1,019 career rebounds are second all-time at Colorado.
Roberson leads the nation in rebounding and ranks among the top-25 in steals per game. Also on the national level, he has recorded 10 rebounds, two blocks and two steals in 10 games this year, twice as many as any other Division I player. He’s the first CU player to average a double-double (10.8 ppg., 11.5 rpg.) in back-to-back years since Shaun Vandiver (1989-91).
Dinwiddie (6’6”, 190-pound, Woodland Hills, Calif./Taft HS) earned first-team honors for the first time in his collegiate career after leading the Buffs in scoring with a 15.4 points per game average (7th in Pac-12). His conference scoring per game (16 ppg.) ranks sixth, and he is fifth in free throw percentage (82.2) and 11th in assists (3.0).
Dinwiddie named to the PAC-12 first team
He leads the Buffs with seven 20-point scoring games (four of those in the Pac-12), tops CU in assists (91, 3.0 apg.) and at the free throw line (82.2%). He has led the team in scoring 13 times. The conference honor is Dinwiddie’s second straight after bring named to the second team as a freshman.
Roberson and Dinwiddie are the first CU pair named to the conference first team since 1968-69 when Cliff Meely and Gordon Tope were named to the Big 8 Conference first team. In fact, Ken Charlton and Jim Davis (1962-63), and Charlton and Wilky Gilmore (1961-62) were the other tandems in the same year named conference first team.
Josh Scott was named to the PAC-12 all-fresman team
Scott (6’10”, 215-pound, Monument, Colo./Lewis-Palmer HS) is CU’s second selection to the all-Pac-12 freshmen team in as many years (Dinwiddie). His initial season as a Buff has been a successful one; he ranked second in team field goal percentage (48.7), free throw percentage (75.3), and rebounding (5.4).
Scott has started 27 of 28 games in which he has played. He is also fourth in scoring (10.7 ppg) with 16 games in double figures and a pair of double-doubles.
The other major conference awards were as follows: California junior guard Allen Crabbe – Pac-12 Men’s Basketball Player of the Year; Arizona State guard Jahii Carson and UCLA guard Shabazz Muhammad – Pac-12 Co-Freshman of the Year; Stanford junior forward Dwight Powell – Pac-12 Most Improved Player of the Year; and Dana Altman of Oregon –John Wooden Coach of the Year.
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