CU Men’s Basketball
CU men: “No sense of urgency” leads to defeat by the last place team in PAC-12
Mar 10th
Colorado took a step down on Saturday afternoon, losing to the Pac-12 Conference team in last-place team entering the final weekend of play. But the Buffaloes won’t have to wait long to avenge the loss.
Oregon State upset CU 64-58 at the Coors Events Center in the final regular-season game for both teams. CU defeated OSU 72-68 last month in Corvallis, and the Buffs will get the chance to play the Beavers again next week in the Pac-12 Tournament in Las Vegas.
With Washington State upsetting Southern California on Saturday, Oregon State becomes the tournament’s No. 12 seed, drawing No. 5 CU on Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. MST at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
The last time the Buffs ended the regular season with an opponent they would play five days later occurred in the 2009-10 season. CU defeated Texas Tech at the CEC, the lost to the Red Raiders in the first round of the Big 12 Conference Tournament.
CU shot only 35 percent from the field Saturday and had only one player – Spencer Dinwiddie with 18 – in double figures. The Beavers shot 43.5 percent and out-rebounded the Buffs 38-32.
The Buffaloes finished with a 20-10 overall record and a 10-8 league mark, while the Beavers closed out at 14-17 and 4-14. Colorado’s 20-win season is its third straight, a school record for three consecutive years and the first time a CU coach has recorded three 20-win seasons. Spencer Dinwiddie had 18 points
But third-year Buffs coach Tad Boyle wasn’t happy.
“I want to apologize to everyone in this building for our performance,” Boyle said to the crowd before recognizing senior Sabatino Chen and graduating junior Shane Harris-Tunks at the post-game Senior Day ceremony. Chen scored nine points while Harris-Tunks added four.
The Buffs got off to a sloppy start, committing five turnovers in the first 10 minutes compared to the Beavers’ one. At the 12:42 mark, a three by OSU’s Victor Robbins followed by an Eric Moreland jumper gave the Beavers a 14-9 lead.
But Colorado, led by Chen, responded. Over the next 2.5 minutes, Chen scored on a layup, assisted a Xavier Talton layup, then grabbed a steal and turned that into a three-pointer to put the Buffs up 16-14. CU held onto the lead for the rest of the half and led 29-27 at the break.
Boyle said Chen did just what he should offensively against OSU’s zone defense.
“Usually when a team plays zone, they’re playing because they don’t feel like they can guard you man-to-man, so you let them off the hook by taking quick jump shots and by not attacking and moving the ball,” Boyle said. “Sabatino, with all the things he gives you, [is] the epitome of what we want young men to be as student athletes at the University of Colorado.”
At intermission, Chen led in scoring with seven points, the first time in his career he has been the Buffs’ leading scorer at half.
Out of the locker room, though, OSU found its momentum. The Beavers went on a 15-6 run to take a 42-33 lead with 15:08 remaining, and the Buffs spent the rest of the half trying to recover.
Sophomore guard Askia Booker, who ended the game with eight points and no rebounds, said that recovery attempt just didn’t have enough energy.
“There was no sense of urgency whatsoever,” Booker said. “Especially on the defensive end, and that’s where we’re going to win games.”
While the Beavers built their largest lead of the game – eight at the 10:15 mark – the Buffs did put together a late comeback attempt in the final two minutes that nearly made up the difference. CU was down 56-50 with 2:10 remaining when a Dinwiddie trey closed the gap to three.
Dinwiddie was the only scorer for CU in those final minutes. While he would hit another basket with 51.2 seconds on the clock and make three of three free throws with 28.8 remaining, OSU’s Roberto Nelson responded on nearly every Beaver possession.
By the final buzzer, the Buffs were down six to close out their regular season with a rare home loss to the Pac-12’s lowest-ranked team. CU is 12-3 in the CEC this season and 44-7 at home in Boyle’s three season. Of the three home conference games CU has dropped this season (UCLA, Arizona State, Oregon State), Saturday’s was by the largest scoring margin.
Boyle made no excuses for his team’s performance, saying that while he’d already talked to his players about his disappointment, he’d take the blame for the loss outside of the locker room.
“This one is on me as head coach. We weren’t ready to play today, mentally, emotionally or physically,” Boyle said. “You get what you deserve in life, and we got what we deserved.”
The 2011-12 Buffs were in a similar position at the end of the regular season, as they dropped their final two contests against Oregon and Oregon State on the road and nearly missed out on an NCAA Tournament berth. Knowing that they would need a conference tournament championship to earn their spot, they responded and took home the Pac-12 Conference Tournament trophy.
Dinwiddie said last year’s postseason story was all about the seniors.
“We just kind of banded together as brothers, we understood what we were playing for,” Dinwiddie said. “We had four seniors on the roster that were never going to have this opportunity again . . . so we just wanted to give them a special time.”
This year’s Buffs are young. Just two players — Chen, a senior, and Shane Harris-Tunks, who is graduating in May as a redshirt junior — see this postseason as the beginning of the end.
And while Boyle won’t reflect for long on last season’s glory, he said his team will enter Wednesday’s Pac-12 Tournament first round with a very similar mindset.
“We are going to approach the Pac-12 Tournament this year just like we did last year,” Boyle said. “We have to get ready to play whoever is placed in front of us. It is not about winning four games in four days, it is about beating whoever our first round opponent is and living for another day.”
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CU Buffs Down Oregon Ducks
Mar 8th
By B.G. Brooks, CUBuffs.com Contributing Editor
BOULDER -After thee, one-point victories over the Ducks. Colorado put the hurt on Oregon 76-53.
It was an outrageous, out-of-sight blowout Thursday night at the sold-out (11,013) Coors Events Center, and at night’s end CU savored a sweep of Oregon and its fourth win in six games this season against a Top 25 opponent.
If the Buffs needed another highlight on their NCAA Tournament resume, this was it. And if coach Tad Boyle needed another milestone win in his three-year CU career, he can put a check by this one.
“I told the team in the locker room I have been coaching division one basketball for 18 years now and I am not sure I have been more proud of a group of guys with what they did and how they stepped up,” Boyle said. “Our starters, bench, whoever we put in there played their hearts out and we beat a good solid basketball team.
Unfortunately, we cannot enjoy it as much as we would like to, we have to get ready for Saturday, and this was a gutty effort with a great basketball team.”
The Buffs, now 9-3 in their last 12 games, close the regular season on Sunday against Oregon State (2:30 p.m., CEC).
In the absence of the 6-7 Roberson, who is day-to-day with a viral illness, the Buffs took up the slack by committee. Their headliner was freshman Xavier Johnson, who responded with a career-high 22 points. He was perfect from the field, hitting seven-of-seven, including three-of-three from beyond the arc, and was five-of-six from the free throw line.
Boyle called Johnson’s performance “terrific . . . his performance was big time, when you make shots it covers up a lot of things and we were not able to do that at Cal but we were able to do it tonight. I was really proud of him stepping up because he is a guy that with Andre being out we needed to count on.”
Sophomore guards Spencer Dinwiddie and Askia Booker added 17 and 11, respectively. Dinwiddie contributed seven rebounds and Booker six. Junior Jeremy Adams left the bench for seven points, and senior Sabatino Chen – opening in Roberson’s place – got six.
Oregon has three players with 10 points each – Jonathan Lloyd, Ben Carter and Arsalan Kazemi.
Chen returning the starting five gave the Buffs a smaller than usual lineup that produced matchup problems for the Ducks. Said Oregon coach Dana Altman: “They went small and we had a little trouble with that and then (Xavier) Johnson stepped up and hit a lot of shots, so he played really well. (He) really made a big difference in the game.”
Even without Roberson’s 11.5-board average (he also averages 10.8 points) and fierce defensive presence, the Buffs outrebounded the Ducks 38-35 and held them to 35.7 percent shooting. CU now has held nine consecutive Pac-12 Conference opponents under 70 points – the most since 16 foes were held under 70 during the entire 1962 Big Eight season and the first two games of the following season.
“Rebounding is always our emphasis,” Dinwiddie said. “We like to say that defensive rebounding is the pillar of our program. But of course when someone like Andre goes out and rebounding is their specialty, you have to pick up the slack in that area. We just all had to pick up the rebounds as a team.”
CU improved to 20-9 overall – its school-record third 20-win season, all under Boyle – and 10-7 in the Pac-12. Oregon, needing a win to clinch a tie for first place in the conference, leaves Boulder 23-7, 12-5.
CU has had its share of injury/illness problems over the past three weeks. Freshman center Josh Scott was in his second game back since missing two with a concussion. He returned last weekend at California, scoring four points but hauling down 11 rebounds, and he collected eight on Thursday night with another four points.
Then comes Roberson’s illness . . . but the Buffs were a team on a mission. Johnson said Roberson’s absence “puts a lot of pressure on the freshman and everybody else, knowing that we have to make up for those rebounds. So, we just tried to do the best we could.”
The Ducks scored the game’s first basket – a jumper by E.J. Singler – but it was their last lead of the night. By intermission, despite Boyle having to sub liberally because of two fouls each on five of his key players, CU had rolled to a 37-21 lead – the Buffs’ largest halftime advantage of the season in Pac-12 play.
CU’s first-half defense was stifling, limiting Oregon to 18 percent shooting (3-for-16) in the first 10 minutes. By intermission the Ducks’ shooting had improved, but not by much – 7-for-26 (27 percent). The Buffs, meanwhile, improved on their 23 percent shooting last weekend at Cal, going 13-of-27 (48 percent) and hitting half of their eight three-point attempts.
Needing to at least maintain their intensity to open the second half, the Buffs took it a step further, outscoring the visitors 8-4 over the first 5 minutes to race ahead by 20 (45-25).
With 12:31 to play, CU pushed its advantage to 24 (55-31) on a pair of Dinwiddie free throws after a flagrant foul on Oregon. The Ducks could only get as close as 17 points in the final 10 minutes, and the Buffs pushed their advantage to 25 (71-46) before it was over.
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C
CU men lose to Golden Bears, throwing NCAA bid in doubt
Mar 3rd
CU, ranked fifth in the Pac-12 Conference going into Saturday’s game, falls to 19-9 overall and 9-7 in the Pac-12. The third-ranked Golden Bears, winning their seventh consecutive game, improved to 20-9 overall and 12-5.
Colorado struggled offensively Saturday with a season low in points, field goals made (15) and field goal shooting percentage (23.1). Freshman forward Xavier Johnson was the only CU player in double figures with 14 total points. Freshman Josh Scott returned to the lineup after missing two games with a concussion. He scored four points and grabbed 11 rebounds.
Cal’s Justin Cobbs and Tyrone Wallace scored 16 points each, while David Kravish added 14 points and 11 rebounds. Wallace also hauled down 11 boards.
“We didn’t have one guy offensively make a shot tonight, but you have to credit Cal, they man-handled us,” CU coach Tad Boyle said. “Our first shot defense was pretty good but those second-chance shots were tough.”
The Buffs came into Saturday’s matchup looking to smother guard Allen Crabbe, the leading scorer in the Pac-12 at more than 18 points per game. But when Crabbe recorded his third personal foul with 5:11 remaining in the half, he took to the bench.
An improving Cal team executed offensively without its star scorer, though. The Golden Bears went on an 8-0 run over the next four minutes to go up 22-15, and while senior guard Sabatino Chen hit a three to end the half on an energetic note, the Buffs were still down four (24-20) at intermission.
The Golden Bears held the Buffs to just 26 percent shooting in the first half, CU’s worst first-half field goal percentage this season, and the Buffs’ 20 first-half points tied a season low recorded earlier this season at Washington.
Much of CU’s shooting woes came from a failure to capitalize off of Cal turnovers, as CU had a +2 turnover margin going into halftime, but had five fewer points off of turnovers than its opponent.
The Buffs found some energy out of the locker room, closing the gap back to two on a Xavier Johnson trey with 14:16 left in the game. Cal responded, though, with an 8-3 run over the next five minutes capped by a SC Top-10-worthy dunk by guard Tyrone Wallace.
Cal had widened its gap to nine by the 5:32 mark — and with a final shooting percentage of 23.1 from the field, the Buffs’ comeback attempt came nowhere close. By the final buzzer, CU was down 16 for a 62-46 loss.
“Cal wasn’t this Cal when they came to Boulder a month ago,” said Boyle, whose team won the first meeting 81-71. “So they’ve improved We were the best defensive team in the league for a stretch there but these guys have overtaken us and you can see why.”
CU returns to the Coors Events Center next weekend for its final two regular season matchups, against No. 24 Oregon on Thursday (7 p.m.) and Oregon State on Saturday (2:30 p.m.).
Boyle called Saturday’s contest “a big time game and we didn’t answer the bell. But it wasn’t because of our lack of effort and we can’t get too down on ourselves. We have two big games at home to finish out the season.”
At 12-4 in the Pac-12, the Ducks currently hold the top spot in the conference, while the Beavers are ranked 11th at 3-13.