Sports

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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