Sports
Sports News in Boulder, Colorado Includes CU Buffs, Rockies, Nuggets, Bronkos, Avs, cycling, running, skiingand anything else sports that hits our sports desk. Send sports press releases to sports@BoulderChannel1.com To advertise please call 303-447-8531
Pac-12 Semis: Wildcats Deliver KO Punch To Buffs
Mar 15th
Buffs still hope for NCAA tourney bid
Release: March 14, 2014
By: B.G. Brooks, Contributing Editor
LAS VEGAS – The Colorado Buffaloes got the first-half start they wanted Friday night against Arizona, but the start of the second was another story – one of shock and maybe a little bit of awe.
The fourth-ranked Wildcats, the top seed in the Pac-12 Conference tournament, held the fifth-seeded Buffs to only two field goals in the second half’s first 12:32, coupled that shutdown with a 20-4 run, and raced away with a 63-43 semifinal win at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
“In the second half, that thing got away from us quick,” CU coach Tad Boyle said. “If Arizona makes shots and with the way they guard consistently, they’ve got a chance to win a national championship.”
CU’s Xavier Talton drives against Arizona
Arizona (30-3) plays the winner of Friday night’s second semifinal – UCLA vs. Stanford – on Saturday afternoon (4 p.m. MDT) in the Pac-12 championship game. CU (23-11) awaits word on Selection Sunday to make potential NCAA Tournament plans.
“We’re obviously disappointed in the result, but we lost to a darn good Arizona team,” Boyle said. “That’s a hell of a team, a hell of a program. They’ve had an unbelievable year.”
His defense was pit-bull nasty to the Buffs, but Arizona coach Sean Miller returned Boyle’s kind words, complimenting Boyle and his staff on rejuvenating the Buffs after losing point guard Spencer Dinwiddie in mid-January.
Miller said outsiders can’t comprehend the magnitude of such a loss and what it takes to adjust: “I mean it knocks you back. You can’t call timeout, have a month to prepare and think about things. You have to get it right away.
“What Tad and his staff have done and what those players have done has been really nothing short of remarkable. The fact they’re sitting in the NCAA Tournament, our hat’s off to them and we wish them nothing but the best.”
The Buffs could have used some of the post-game goodwill from the Wildcats’ defense in the second half. Ahead only 27-24 at halftime, Arizona allowed a Josh Scott layup at the 18:32 mark, but didn’t permit another CU field goal for almost 5 minutes.
Nearly another 6 minutes passed before the Buffs got their third basket of the second half, and by then the Wildcats had rolled to a 51-32 advantage. The Buffs were on their way to a night of near-record lows:
· Their 43 points were the lowest since scoring 49 against Illinois (57) in the 2013 NCAA Tournament;
· Their 29 percent field goal shooting was the lowest since Arizona held CU to 32.7 on Feb. 22 in Boulder;
· Their 25 rebounds – the Wildcats hauled down 41 – were a season low, as were their 15 field goals.
“We knew they were good defensively,” said Boyle, “and we knew we were going to have to make some shots to beat them. We couldn’t get going. Their defense had something to do with that, our offense had something to do with that. You put those two things together . . .
“Listen, they’re a great defensive team, not a good defensive team, a great defensive team. They’ve shown it game after game all season long.”
When they’re dialed in, the Wildcats aren’t mediocre on offense either. Nick Johnson, the Pac-12’s player of the year, led Arizona with 16 points, getting help from guard P.J. McConnell and 6-7 freshman wing Rondae Hollis-Jefferson with 12 each. All of Hollis-Jefferson’s points came in the second half – and half of them during that explosive stretch when Arizona outscored CU 20-4 to take its 51-32 lead.
Askia Booker (12 points) and Xavier Johnson (11) were the only CU players in double figures. Booker said the Buffs “were right there with them in the first half. It just takes that two to five minutes for them to open up the game – and that’s exactly what they did. Their offensive rebounding was very aggressive, they were knocking down some jump shots. They’re very good.”
The Wildcats’ defense in the class of the Pac-12, said Booker, because “they guard the ball very well. They’re always in gap help. There’s a lot of times I get by a guy and another guy is right there. If I kick it out they’re contesting the shot – and it’s always a great contest. You have to be very efficient and knock down shots to beat this team. If you don’t do that, it’s going to be tough for you, especially if you don’t get stops. And they rebound the ball very well.”
“They’re so physical,” added guard Xavier Talton, who hit a pair of 3-pointers (8 points total) and finished with five treys in the last two games here. “I think their gap help and their guards really guard the ball. That’s a big thing . . . the way Sean Miller recruits, he recruits athletes. Them staying in front of us is a big part of keeping us out of the paint – which is want to do. That’s a big testament to them.”
Among the Buffs’ chief goals was to prevent a devastating early Wildcats run that essentially buried CU in Arizona’s two regular-season wins. The Buffs fell behind 18-4 in their 69-57 loss in Tucson and 22-5 in their 88-61 loss in Boulder.
There was no such surge on Friday night – at least not in the first half after the Buffs managed to stay close (27-24) at intermission. A trey by Gabe York a second before the halftime buzzer gave Arizona its three-point lead.
The Wildcats had gone up 22-13 with 6:08 left in the half, but the Buffs stayed strong. Over the half’s last 6 minutes, CU outscored Arizona 11-4, and Arizona’s 27 points were the third fewest by the Wildcats this season.
CU needed an efficient second-half start, but Arizona wouldn’t allow it. Meanwhile, the Wildcats were getting revved up, quickly scoring outside on baskets by McConnell and a 3-pointer by Johnson, and inside on a Johnson tip-in and another by Hollis-Jefferson.
When Booker finally got CU’s third basket of the half, putting back his own miss and hitting an “and-one,” the Buffs closed to within 38-32 with 13:55 remaining. Still, the game seemed on the verge of slipping away, and the inside work of Hollis-Jefferson provided a significant shove. After hitting a pair of free throws, he scored on another tip-in then powered for a layup to give the Wildcats their biggest lead – 44-32 – with 10:15 to play.
Boyle called a timeout, but the Buffs came out of it with a missed layup by Booker. Trouble – and a 7-0 Wildcats run – were coming: McConnell hit a trey, Gordon scored on a put-back and Jordin Mayes added a lay-up.
Suddenly, the Buffs were down by 19 – 51-32 – and the Garden Arena reverberated with “U of A, U of A” chants. The Wildcats extended their lead to as many as 22 points in the final 5 minutes and the Buffs were left to wait on Sunday and the NCAA Selection Committee.
“I’m proud of our guys,” Boyle said. “We’ve got a lot of fight, a lot of heart. We’ve gotten better over the last three weeks of the season, but it was a disappointing end. But our season’s not over – that’s the good news.”
Contact: BG.Brooks@Colorado.EDU
Pac-12: Buffs Survive, Advance By Their Magic Number – 59
Mar 14th
By B.G. Brooks, CUBuffs.com Contributing Editor
LAS VEGAS – If you’re thinking the Colorado Buffaloes are stuck on 59, you might be onto something. But here in Sin City, where gambling is the big engine that could, that’s a long way from crapping out.
It’s a magnificent number, a winning number, for Tad Boyle and his revitalized crew.
The Buffs’ last three wins – against Stanford in the next-to-last regular-season game, against USC in the first round of the Pac-12 Tournament, against California in the quarterfinals – have been by the same score: 59-56.
The Buffs’ two wins here have ended in identical, nail-biting, fist-gnawing fashion: CU is up by three in the closing seconds and survives a 3-pointer to tie at the buzzer.
In racehorse college basketball, 59 points are not a lot. Boyle’s guys love to run and score, but that’s not how this team – this season – has evolved after Spencer Dinwiddie’s knee injury in mid-January. In their last seven games, the Buffs haven’t hit 70 points, with 65 in a one-point overtime loss at Cal the high mark.
That’s the longest low-scoring stretch in Boyle’s about-to-be-completed four seasons in Boulder. But here’s the more telling bottom line number: Boyle’s fourth CU team has won 23 games (10 losses), making this season the second-most productive in terms of wins in school history. (His first two Buffs teams finished with 24 wins.)
And turning to something more topical since it’s the month of madness, those 23 wins should remove any mystery – if there was any – that might have shrouded CU’s inclusion in the NCAA Tournament field. Selection Sunday looms for the official word, but the word will be good. Book it.
But Friday finds the Buffs with things other than the NCAA Tournament on their minds. They have a semifinal date at 7:06 p.m. MDT with top-seeded and fourth-ranked Arizona in the MGM Garden Arena. Upsetting the Wildcats, then winning the Pac-12 championship on Saturday would remove all Selection Sunday mystery about the Buffs’ NCAA future; the tournament champ is in automatically.
Accomplishing that begins with beating powerful Arizona, whose players defend like they were guarding loved ones from a home invasion.
“They took a lot of pride in guarding us . . . we got punched in the mouth by a really good basketball team and we saw Arizona, I think, at their finest,” Utah coach Larry Krystkowiak said Thursday after Arizona had clamped down on his team in a 71-39 quarterfinal win. The halftime score: 34-13. Utah’s Big Three – Jordan Loveridge, Brandon Taylor and Delon Wright – were a combined 1-of-16 from the field.
The Buffs know something about the Wildcats’ defense from their regular-season meetings. Arizona won 69-57 in Tucson, 88-61 in Boulder. The Wildcats give up points as willingly as the IRS gives away cash; they lead the Pac-12 in scoring defense, allowing 58.7 points a game.
That’s very close to CU’s magic number of late – 59 . . . Hmmmmm.
“They’re the best defensive team in our league,” Boyle said. “It’s not even close. They’re the best rebounding team in our league. It is close there.”
That’s because CU is at 37.9 boards a game, while Arizona is at 38.9.
In their two wins over the Buffs this season, the Wildcats leaped to large early leads – as they did against the Utes Thursday. CU fell behind 18-4 in Tucson and 22-5 in Boulder in what would end in the Buffs’ worst home loss of the Boyle era.
Whether it makes a difference or not Friday, this is a different CU team, a more focused team. Eli Stalzer, who stepped to the foul line Thursday in the final 6 six seconds and hit one of two critical free throws, said the Buffs have learned something about themselves and the high energy Boyle wants from them since a March 1 loss (75-64) at Utah.
“Now it seems like guys don’t think they can take plays off; every possession is important,” Stalzer said. “We’re all working hard to do our best.”
That’s partially attributable to the transformation of junior guard Askia Booker, who has averaged 16.3 points, 5.7 rebounds and 3 assists. He’s shooting 46.7 percent from the field (21-of-45). In the two Pac-12 Tournament games, he has averaged 19 points a game, 5 rebounds and 3.5 assists. He’s hit 50 percent from the field (16-of-32).
Maybe more important than the numbers, Booker’s composure has stood out. He’s become CU’s glue, if you will, which at one point in his career might have seemed improbable if not impossible.
Boyle said, as a coach, “you hope” a player develops like Booker has: “He’s had an interesting career; he’s grown up exponentially – especially since Spencer went down. He was thrown in the fire of a leadership role . . . he’s done a great job. And that’s what’s so gratifying about doing this job. You see young men come in, where they are as freshman not just physically and skill-wise but emotionally, spiritually and maturity-wise. He’s come a long way.”
So have the Buffs. Boyle’s second CU team (2011-12) won the inaugural Pac-12 Tournament in Los Angeles with a four-day, four-game run as a No. 6 seed. His fourth team, as a No. 5 seed, is within two wins of a repeat. Boyle doesn’t have near the veteran leadership on this team that was apparent in L.A., but he’s seen a similar trait develop over the last several weeks. That would ownership.
“You look at that team with Nate (Tomlinson), Carlin (Brown) and Austin (Dufault) – they took ownership down the stretch and made it happen,” he said. “Now, we had to win some close games there . . . but now we have to play one of the best teams in the country in the semis and we didn’t have to do that two years ago.”
I asked Boyle if his players would have any difficulty in blotting out those two regular-season losses to the Wildcats, particularly the one in Boulder that concluded ESPN’s College GameDay visit.
“I don’t know, we’ll see,” Boyle answered. “That’s a distant memory. It’s a new day, a new opportunity. The way our guys are playing right now and feeling about themselves, they want that opportunity, they relish it. We’re not going to play with a lack of confidence (Friday).”
MBB: CU into quarterfinal in Pac-12 tourney
Mar 13th
by B.G. Brooks, CUBuffs.com
LAS VEGAS – In March, basketball teams can live on their game’s intangibles and die without them. On an afternoon when their leading scorer’s frustration nearly overshadowed his productivity and little else went smoothly, the Colorado Buffaloes turned to those intangibles to survive – and they did.
No. 5 seed CU used an 8-0 run late in the second half to pull away from No. 12 seed Southern California, then held on loosely to eliminate the Trojans 59-56 in Wednesday’s first round of the Pac-12 Conference Tournament.
A relieved CU coach Tad Boyle called it an exercise in winning ugly – but in March ugly still counts. The Buffs (22-10) advance to play No. 4 seed California (19-12) in Thursday’s quarterfinal round (3:30 p.m. MDT) in the MGM Garden Arena. In their only meeting this season, Cal defeated CU by one point in overtime last weekend in Berkeley.
CU’s 22nd win of the season ties for the fourth-most wins in school history, with Boyle owning three of the top four winningest seasons.
Reaching the quarterfinals was more difficult than many imagined for CU. USC, losers of 11 of its final 12 regular-season games, took a five-point lead with 9:46 remaining Wednesday and appeared ready to close out the erratic Buffs, who had swept the Trojans (11-21) in their two previous meetings.
But CU dialed up one of the intangibles – mental toughness – that finally surfaced late in the regular season and nearly carried the Buffs to a sweep of their Bay Area road trip. It arrived when needed in Vegas, and it came in the form of chasing down long rebounds, loose balls and protecting the ball over the game’s final 10 minutes. The Buffs committed nine of their 13 turnovers in the first half, the other four in the opening minutes of the second half.
“When you don’t play your best and you’re off your game with multiple guys on multiple levels and you figure out a way to win, that’s a testament to your mental toughness,” Boyle said. “When it’s a game that shots aren’t going in and you’re struggling offensively and the whistle is not going your way on either side, that’s where mental toughness really has to take over. That’s where I think our team over the last two weeks has made tremendous strides.”
Down 47-42 with just under 10 minutes to play, maybe CU’s – and junior guard Askia Booker’s – alarm buttons were hit. Booker converted a three-point play, followed with a 15-foot jumper, then fed Xavier Johnson for a stuff that tied the score at 49-49 with 8:01 left.
“Ski” Booker’s baskets with eight minutes to play allowed the Buffs to take the lead.
“Around the first media timeout in the second half, I told myself that it’s either now or never,” Booker said. “I talked to coach (Jean) Prioleau and he said, ‘It’s time.’ That’s when I told myself, let’s get going.
Booker led the Buffs with 21 points – his fifth 20-point game of the season and seventh of his career. He also contributed seven rebounds and four assists against only one turnover. Boyle said Booker “made some big-time plays, but he played with great composure. We’re going to need him to do that because he’s important to our team, as all our guys are.”
One of Booker’s most significant plays belonged in the intangible column. Going out of bounds to retrieve a long rebound off a teammate’s missed shot, Booker leaped and slammed the ball off a Trojans player’s leg with 10.2 seconds left to give the Buffs another possession.
“They got a loose ball that was going out of bounds and threw it off our legs. They got the ball back,” first-year USC coach Andy Enfield said.
When Booker has reached 20-plus points this season, the Buffs are 4-1. He’s been at his best against USC, averaging 20.2 points, 6.1 rebounds and 5.1 assists in three wins against the Trojans this season. The Buffs won 83-62 in Boulder, 83-74 in Los Angeles and now lead the series 7-3, including 5-0 since joining the Pac-12 in 2011.
Sophomore post Josh Scott, frustrated and held to one first-half point largely by USC’s large (7-0, 270) Egyptian center, Omar Oraby, keyed CU’s decisive 8-0 run with three consecutive baskets inside to break a 50-50 tie and give the Buffs a 56-50 advantage with 4:10 to play.
When Booker added a layup in transition, the Buffs had their largest lead of the afternoon – 58-50 – and the Trojans were in desperation mode. As it had all game, USC turned to Byron Wesley (23 points) for five of its last seven points and a potential game-tying 3-pointer that clanged off the left side of the rim at the buzzer.
Scott, who attempted only three first-half shots and made one of two free throws, scored 12 second-half points and collected a game-high nine rebounds – a respectable ending to a frustrating afternoon for CU’s leading scorer (14.5 ppg).
“It was frustrating,” Scott said. “I think that was pretty obvious I was pretty frustrated. But I thank my teammates a lot for having confidence in me to keep getting me the ball there at the end. It tells me that they still have confidence even when I might not have the most confidence in myself at the time.”
Boyle called the 6-10 Scott “the ultimate battler . . . that’s what he does. He battles every day on every possession offense and defense. People have no idea how big and how strong Oraby is . . . I didn’t want to play Josh as many minutes (33) as I did. I hoped I wouldn’t have to, but you’ve got to survive and advance.”
Scott finished 4-of-14 from the field, but frontcourt mates Wesley Gordon and Johnson had his back – each hitting four of their six field goal attempts. Johnson scored eight of his 11 points in the first half, when he hit back-to-back 3-pointers on his only two attempts to give CU its largest first-half lead – 10-4. But the Buffs led by only two – 29-27 – at intermission. The 6-9 Gordon finished the afternoon with eight points, six rebounds, one blocked shot, one assist and one steal.
Gordon called the Trojans “a different team than the Southern California team that we’ve played before. They came out with a lot of energy and they were very physical with us. They played really, really well.”
The Buffs outrebounded the Trojans 38-27, out-pointed them in the paint 34-30 and had 10 fast break points to USC’s two. The Trojans’ bench outscored the Buffs’ 9-2, with Dustin Thomas scoring CU’s only points off the bench. One of the reserves Boyle used was freshman Tre’Shaun Fletcher, who suffered a knee injury on Jan. 12 at Washington and had not played until Wednesday. Fletcher played 3 minutes and missed his only field goal attempt.
CU hit just nine of its 16 free throw attempts, with its 56.3 percentage the second lowest of the season. USC attempted 22 3-pointers, making just five. “It’s been a weakness of ours all year,” Enfield said. “We need to get some guys to make shots.”
Overnight Wednesday and on Thursday morning, CU turns its focus toward Cal. The Buffs like the short time – five days – between games; the memory of the OT loss remains fresh.
“We lose to them, like, just a couple of days ago and we get another crack at them. You can’t ask for more,” said Scott, adding that the intangibles the Buffs latched onto in Vegas eluded them in Berkeley. “They got a couple of loose balls, long rebounds that we had to get to win the game. We didn’t, so that hurt our chances.”
But, added Booker, “I think we can compete with them – with anybody in the Pac-12 really. But (Thursday) is the day to come out and prove it.”
