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Buffs Falter In Second Half, Bruins Roll To 92-74 Win
Feb 14th
By B.G. Brooks, CUBuffs.com Contributing Editor
LOS ANGELES – Colorado battled gallantly for a half and a little bit beyond here Thursday night at Pauley Pavilion. But the second 20 minutes were all UCLA as the Bruins overran the Buffaloes 92-74, halting CU’s Pac-12 Conference winning streak at three.
Up 40-36 at halftime, CU was victimized by UCLA’s 3-point shooting in a dizzying 56-point Bruins second half. UCLA (19-5, 8-3) won for the fifth time in six games while CU (18-7, 7-5) lost for a fifth consecutive time to the Bruins and remains winless (0-6) in L.A.
“We weren’t good enough in the second half, obviously,” said CU coach Tad Boyle. “We knew at halftime that we were in the game because we were making shots – we were pretty efficient offensively. Our defense wasn’t good enough all night long, and you guys know it’s about defensive rebounding. When we hit those numbers that we did against Washington the results take care of themselves.”
But in most categories Thursday night, the Buffs lost the numbers game to the Bruins. UCLA finished the game 11-of-22 from beyond the arc, including 8-of-12 (66.7 percent) in the second half. The Bruins shot 56.5 percent from the field for the night while the Buffs finished at 45.9 percent. UCLA also won the board battle by 10 (37-27) and converted 12 CU turnovers into 15 points.
“UCLA just shot the lights out in the second half,” Boyle said. “They executed, we didn’t get stops when we had to, they shot the three-ball well, and our defense wasn’t good enough and we got out-rebounded by 10. UCLA is a good team, and they pose some matchup problems for us . . . but It hurts when you know you played good enough for 20 minutes to win a game, but we have to play for 40. Some of that credit goes towards UCLA, they’re a good basketball team and they played well tonight and they made shots.”
CU had four players in double figures, led by Josh Scott’s 20, while Askia Booker added 16 points and a career-high 12 assists for his first career double-double. Xavier Johnson contributed 14 points and nine rebounds, and Xavier Talton scored 10 points.
Five Bruins, meanwhile, reached double figures, topped by Kyle Anderson’s 22 points and a career-high 11 assists. Jordan Adams (17), Bryce Alford (14), Travis Wear (13) and Norman Powell (10) were UCLA’s other double-digit scorers – but Alford’s second-half productivity separated him from that quartet.
The son of UCLA coach Steve Alford hit 4-of-5 3-pointers – all in the second half – as the Bruins took control in the game’s final 20 minutes. Bryce Alford entered the game having hit only three treys in his last seven games – and all of those came two games ago at Oregon State.
“Kyle Anderson is terrific, and boy Bryce Alford in the second half . . . he was on fire and feeling it,” Boyle said. “That’s what happens, he was oh-fer in our building, I think 0-for-7, but he’s a good shooter, we know he’s a good shooter and you let a good shooter get hot and you’ve got problems. It’s disheartening because this was a winnable game. But I like the way our guys fought, I liked our competitive spirit.”
For a second straight game, the Buffs were without redshirt freshman forward Wesley Gordon, who is still recuperating from ankle/knee injuries suffered when he slipped on ice last weekend. Also absent was true freshman Tre’Shaun Fletcher, who made the trip to L.A. but is not yet fully recovered from the knee injury he suffered at Washington last month.
UCLA, which last month handed CU its only home loss to date (69-56), opened by hitting six of its first nine shots and raced to a 13-5 lead. But the Buffs didn’t crumble; they responded with some of their crispest ball movement to date, launching a 25-7 run that put them up 28-10 with 8:27 left in the half.
During that surge, CU hit two of its four first-half 3-pointers – one by Johnson, the other by Booker, who finished with nine first-half points. The Buffs’ other pair of first-half treys were by Talton, who tied his seasonal high output for a half with those two. CU had made one 3-pointer in the first half of three of its previous Pac-12 road games. The Buffs finished with seven treys – their most in a road game this season.
The Buffs pushed their first-half lead as high as 12 (33-21) before the Bruins buckled down. A 13-3 run brought UCLA to within 36-34, but CU got a buzzer-beating dunk by Scott on an assist by Booker to take a 40-36 lead at intermission. Scott finished the half with 13 points as CU shot 55.2 percent from the field – its second-best mark in a league game this season – with a first-half high 10 assists (17 for the night).
With 48 first-half points in last Sunday’s 91-65 blowout of Washington, CU’s 40 points in the first 20 minutes Thursday night marked the Buffs’ most productive first halves of Pac-12 play this season. But the second half awaited, and no one believed the Bruins would roll over.
They didn’t. After tying the score at 45-45 on a basket by Adams and at 48-48 on 3-pointer by Travis Wear, they took their first lead since 15-13 on a conventional three-point play by Adams, going up 55-53 with 13:12 to play.
Then back-to-back 3-pointers by Bryce Alford shot UCLA ahead 61-53 – and after that 9-0 run, CU looked to be reeling. Alford made sure of it, draining his third trey of the second half’s first 10 minutes and sending the Bruins back to the first of two double-digit leads (68-58).
When CU crept to within seven points, Alford hit his fourth triple and UCLA regained its 10-point advantage (76-66). A three-point play by Scott brought the Buffs to within 76-71 with 6:35 remaining but they came no closer. The Bruins stretched their lead to 18 (92-74) in the final 2 minutes.
CU plays at USC on Sunday (6 p.m. MT, ESPNU) hoping to salvage a split on its West Coast trip, and Boyle underscored that game’s importance. “It is, no question (important),” he said. “We have to have a short memory but I don’t want us to put this behind us and forget about it, we’re going to learn from it, we’re going to watch some film, but we have got to bounce back.
“And again, our guys fight and they scratch and they claw and I thought we did tonight. We didn’t get beat because of lack of effort, we got beat because we played a good basketball team that executed better than we did. But, it’s important that we bounce back. USC is hungry right now and they are playing better than their record. We’re going to run into a better team than we saw in the Coors Events Center a few weeks ago and we know that.”
GAME NOTES
• Colorado lost for the fifth straight time to UCLA and remains winless in Los Angeles (0-6); CU is also 0-4 to UCLA in Pac-12 play; Bruins lead the series, 8-1.
• CU drops to 1-4 in Pac-12 Conference road games.
• CU’s 18-7 record is still the best record for CU after 25 games in four seasons under Boyle.
• Only CU’s fourth loss in 30 games when having 15 or more assists in a game under Boyle. Against UCLA: 17.
• First half shot second best FG% of the first half (55.2) … for the game (45.9FG% highest of 5 Pac-12 road games).
• Seven made 3-pointers, most made on the road this season.
Askia Booker
• First career double-double (16 points, 12 assists).
• First player since Marcus Hall to have at least 10 assists in a game (March 13, 2008 vs. Baylor).
• Third game this season where he had at least 7 or more assists in a game.
• Seventh player in school history with at least 12+ assists in a game. Last CU player with that many Joes Winston, 15 vs. Coppin State, Jan. 2 2001.
Xavier Johnson
• Scored 10+ points for the seventh straight game, against UCLA 14 points.
• Fourth straight game with 9+ rebounds.
Josh Scott
• Scored a season-high 13 points in the first half, 20 for the game.
• Sixth game this season with 20 or more points in a game (8th career).
• 11th time he has led CU in scoring this season (16th career).
Xavier Talton
• Made a pair of treys in the first half (tying season high for the first half).
• Has made 10 treys combined over the last four games.
• Scored his third game of the season with 10+ points (UCLA).
Dustin Thomas
• Made his second career start (four points, two steals).
• Season-best two steals.
Andrew Green | Assistant Director Sports Information
CU women put it all together–at last
Feb 12th
Release: February 10, 2014
By: Troy Andre, Assistant SID
EUGENE, Ore. – Playing in her native Oregon, Jen Reese felt right at home scoring 18 points and grabbing 13 rebounds as Colorado clipped Oregon 81-75 Monday at Matthew Knight Arena.
Playing aggressive defense and dominating on the boards, Colorado held Oregon, the nation’s top scoring offense, 20 points below its season average. Colorado (14-9, 4-8 Pac-12) grabbed a season-high 54 rebounds, including 24 on the offensive end.
Colorado’s 24 offensive boards translated into 25 second-chance points.
“We were more aggressive in rebounding and that really helped,” said Reese who corralled her third career double-double. “We gave the first punch; we knew we had to box out. They are a great offensive rebounding team and we knew coming in that was going to be a huge factor.
And it wasn’t just Reese on the boards. Arielle Roberson had nine with her 17 points, just missing a double-double. Jamee Swan had eight points and eight rebounds off the bench.
Rachel Hargis also came up with some key minutes down the stretch. She scored seven of her eight points in the second half, getting two key baskets in the final minutes. Hargis was credited with only two rebounds, but her presence in the paint, which included a season-high three blocked shots, caused issues for the Ducks.
“Today, we really focused on our defense and it hasn’t been what it has been in the past,” Hargis said. “If we keep doing that, we’ll get back to where we need to be and we’ll go into the conference tournament with some confidence.”
Oregon forward Jillian Alleyne who entered the game averaging 21.4 points and a nation-best 15.6 rebounds per game, was held to single figures in rebounding for just the third time this season, finishing with nine to go along with 15 points.
Freshman guard Chrishae Rowe scored a game-high 23 points for Oregon on 7-of-19 shooting. Colorado held the Ducks to 33 percent from the field while the Buffaloes shot 44 percent.
Colorado led by as many as 15 points in the first half, but the Ducks stormed back using a 14-4 run to take its first lead at 46-45 with 15:34 left.
The Buffaloes regrouped with a stretch that epitomized the Buffaloes effort on the boards. CU capitalized on three consecutive offensive rebounds to help push its lead back up to eight.
Up by one after a couple of Swan free throws, Swan missed a layup but Reese was in perfect position for the tip in. Fouled on the play, Reese missed the free throw, but Swan got the offensive board and was fouled herself.
Swan made the first but missed the second. This time Lexy Kresl grabbed the offensive board. She was able to split the Oregon defense for a layup as Colorado increased its lead to 52-46. Following a Megan Carpenter missed jumper, Swan grabbed the long rebound and went coast-to-coast, capping of a 9-0 run and a 54-46 Buffaloes advantage.
“I think there’s always flows of the game,” head coach Linda Lappe said. “We knew coming out of halftime, a nine point lead against Oregon is nothing. We wanted to come out aggressive, but we didn’t do that as well. But I like how we composed ourselves. When we have the mentality defensively, we’re going to make plays on offense. Even offensively, we had to grind it out at times tonight, and we did that.”
Oregon stayed close with the long ball. The Ducks hit six of their 10 3-pointers in the second half. When it looked like Colorado could pull away after Reese gave the Buffs a 61-51 lead, Lexi Petersen drilled a 3-pointer that began an 18-5 run for the Ducks. Petersen hit a second long ball during that stretch and Ariel Thomas capped off the run with a 3-pointer to give Oregon a 69-66 lead with 4:41 remaining.
But Colorado never let the Ducks extend the lead beyond that. Hargis, who scored seven of her eight points during the final stretch, answered Thomas with a bucket.
Colorado then clamped down defensively, allowing Oregon (13-10, 4-8) only four points in the final four minutes.
Reese scored the go-ahead bucket on a short baseline jumper with 45 seconds left to break a 75-75 tie. After getting a stop on the defensive end, Brittany Wilson gave Colorado that all-important four-point lead on a pair of free throws with 15 seconds left.
After stopping the Ducks for the second straight possession, Ashley Wilson accounted for the final points with a pair of free throws to close the game. In all the Ducks came up empty on eight of their final 10 possessions.
“Our overall mentality was different from the start of the game,” Lappe said. “When you’re willing to do whatever it takes and rebound the basketball, you can turn it around.”
Brittany Wilson finished with 11 points, six rebounds, four assists and three steals. Haley Smith scored a career-best nine points on 4-of-6 shooting and dished out three assists.
Colorado returns to action on Friday, Feb. 14, by hosting Washington at the Coors Events Center at 6:30 p.m.
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.”