Posts tagged Josh Scott
MBB: Near-perfect game stifles Huskies
Feb 10th
By B.G. Brooks, CUBuffs.com Contributing Editor
BOULDER – Colorado overpowered Washington 91-65 on Sunday night at the Coors Events Center, capping a crucial three-game home stand with its third consecutive win and its second-largest margin of victory since joining the Pac-12 Conference. The night quickly turned into all Buffs all the time, and coach Tad Boyle called it “as complete of a performance by our team that we’ve had in a long time. When you defend and you rebound and you shoot the way we did, it’s a recipe for a runaway win. “I’m really proud of our guys, they played together . . . we had 18 assists, it’s been a long time since we’ve had that number, we really shared the ball and played inside-out. Great individual performances and a great team performance.”
The win gave the Buffaloes their second three-game Pac-12 winning streak of the season. They opened 3-0, then lost Spencer Dinwiddie and Tre’Shaun Fletcher during a 71-54 defeat at UW and dropped four of their next five games. But on Sunday night, CU (18-6, 7-4) in no way resembled the team that last month slipped badly in Seattle. Getting an air-tight defensive effort on UW sharpshooter C.J. Wilcox and 20-point scoring performances from three players, the Buffs rolled to a 48-33 halftime lead and led by as many as 30 points (89-59) in winning for the 15th time (against one loss) at the CEC this season. Their 15 home wins are the second-best for a CU team; the 2010-11 Buffs went 18-2. Xavier Johnson, Josh Scott and Askia Booker accounted for 68 of CU’s total, with Johnson scoring a career-high 27, Scott tying a career high with 21 (10 rebounds for his 11th double-double of the season) and Booker adding 20.
“Those guys just picked it up,” said UW coach Lorenzo Romar. “All three of them picked up the slack for what they didn’t have. I don’t think (their length inside) bothered us much. Not as much as it did the first time. It bothered us the first time we played them although Josh Scott is a very good player and shot blocker and defender.” A trio of Buffs reaching 20 points hadn’t happened since Feb. 3, 2007 when Kal Bay (21), Dominique Coleman (20) and Richard Roby (20) all reached the 20-point mark against Oklahoma State. Booker scored 26 points in CU’s 68-63 win over Washington State on Wednesday night, and Johnson had 20. The WSU and UW games marked the first time in XJ’s career for back-to-back 20-point games, and he also was instrumental in keeping Wilcox in check.
“I felt like if not his best game as a Buff then it’s right up there,” Boyle said of Johnson. “He was terrific on both ends of the floor. The thing I’m most proud of with Xavier Johnson is his ability to take on a defensive challenge. He did it against Cue Johnson (WSU guard) and he did it tonight against C.J. Wilcox.” Johnson called Wilcox “a great player. I didn’t guard him last game, so coach was trying something new and put me on him. I was able to contain him for the most part, but most of the credit goes to Jaron (Hopkins). He guarded him most of the game and did very well on him.”
Scott, who was held to one point and one rebound – both season lows – against WSU – recovered in a big way. His 21 points and 10 rebounds gave him his 11th double-double of the season. “The only thing I’d say about that game (WSU) is that I didn’t rebound well,” Scott said. “There’s not very much you can do offensively with three people in the paint. Tonight I just played my game like I did the other night and it all worked out.” Scott also called going 3-0 in the three-game home stand “huge. You always want to win at home and for us losing any of these games wasn’t an option. It’s big. We have a heavier next couple of weeks so any games we win at home is huge at this point in the season.”
CU outrebounded UW (13-10, 5-5) 44-30 and held the Huskies to 32.3 percent (21-of-65) from the field. Wilcox entered the game averaging 19.8 points (18.9 in league play). In the first game in Seattle, he scored 31 points, including seven 3-pointers. The Buffs limited him to eight points on 2-for-10 shooting Sunday night, and he was 0-for-7 from beyond the arc. Freshman Nigel Williams-Goss led the Huskies, who had averaged 76 points a game, with 15 points. Since January, the Buffs have had to compensate for injuries and the trend continued Sunday. Wesley Gordon, who had 8 points, 10 rebounds, 4 blocked shots in Wednesday night’s win against Washington State, missed Sunday’s game with an ankle sprain he suffered when slipping on ice on Saturday. Gordon watched in street clothes, sitting alongside Dinwiddie on the CU bench. Making his first college start in place of Gordon was freshman Dustin Thomas, the “next man up” in Boyle’s philosophy.
Thomas fouled out with 1:41 to play after scoring 3 points and collecting 4 rebounds. Boyle said his team, while obviously missing Dinwiddie, has “settled in. We’ve moved on, we certainly miss Spencer still but I think Askia Booker has really taken on that mentality of a facilitator, Xavier Talton has stepped in and given us good minutes. We do need Wesley back because he’s going to be important to us. We’ve made the transition, but now the test for us is to go on the road. We’ve done what we needed to do at home, we’ve won our home stand and now we need to go on the road and get some road wins.” The Buffs opened and closed the first half on baskets by Talton, who was making his second career start at guard.
Talton opened the scoring with a 3-pointer from the left wing and three of his teammates quickly followed suit. CU hit its first six shots, including its first four 3-point attempts. “Colorado, wow,” said Romar. “They came out on fire, shots contested, not contested. They were just knocking shots down and knocked us back on our heels right away. I thought coming into the game we were pretty focused and ready to play but their ability to hit shots early pushed us back a little bit. They did a nice job coming in to play.” CU shot 52 percent from the field and 60 percent from beyond the arc (6-of-10) in the first 20 minutes and finished at a season-best 64.4 percent (9-of-14) from long range for the game. The Buffs shot 55.4 percent (31-of-56) from the field for the night. Booker, Johnson and Thomas all hit their first 3-point tries, helping push CU to a 16-4 with 16:10 left before intermission.
UW didn’t get its first field goal until just under 31/2 minutes into the game, missing 10 of its first 13 shots. The Buffs stretched their lead to 17 (26-19) before they temporarily cooled off, allowing the Huskies to creep back to within seven (37-30) with 4:10 left before the break. But over those final 4 minutes, CU outscored UW 11-3. When Talton hit a buzzer beater to end the first-half scoring, the Buffs had a 48-33 lead and their largest first-half total of the season. Booker’s 16 points led all first-half scorers and gave him a career high for points scored in one half.
The opening of the second half mirrored the first, with Talton draining a triple from the left wing and Johnson scoring the next six points to send CU up 57-39. Booker then hit a pair of free throws with 15:25 to play, fed Scott for a fast break dunk and hit a short jumper in the lane to push the Buffs ahead by 23 (63-40). If the Huskies were going to avoid their third consecutive loss, something dramatic had to happen – and fast. It didn’t, and UW lost for the fifth time in six Pac-12 road trips. CU, meanwhile, hadn’t beaten a conference opponent that badly since burying Utah 73-33 in 2011 — both schools’ first season in the league. The Buffs play at UCLA on Thursday (7 p.m. MT, ESPN2) and at Southern California on Sunday (6 p.m. MT, ESPNU).
Buffs demonic on defense, rebound from UCLA home loss
Jan 19th
BOULDER – Any lingering memories of the Colorado Buffaloes’ painful loss on Thursday night to UCLA – their first home defeat of the 2013-14 season – were quickly blocked out on Saturday.
Literally, forcefully, fervently.
Swatting away seven first-half shots and setting a pedal-to-the-metal pace that produced an early 20-2 lead, No. 21 CU slapped Southern California 83-62 at the Coors Events Center.
“This was just what the doctor ordered for this team . . . this was the kind of game we needed,” CU coach Tad Boyle said, noting the timing of the win couldn’t have been better after the 69-56 loss to UCLA and knee injuries last weekend that ended point guard Spencer Dinwiddie’s junior season and shelved freshman wing Tre’Shaun Fletcher for 6-8 weeks. Both players will undergo surgery.
Continued Boyle: “I’m really proud of our guys, from the end of the bench to the guys on the floor, for the way they responded. We talked about it at halftime; the frustrating thing about the UCLA game was second-chance points (20) and points off turnovers (20 off of 17 CU errors). We had four turnovers at halftime (12 total) and they had two offensive rebounds.
“Our team took what they had not done against UCLA and did a much better job. Obviously it’s one game, we have to move on. I said this after the UCLA game and I’ll say it again, ‘Don’t count this team out.’ These guys have toughness, they have grit, and we can win some games in this league. All you can ask for in life is an opportunity and we have a great one in front of us.”
That would be a Thursday night game at No. 1 Arizona, followed by a Saturday visit to Arizona State – a pair of desert spots where the Buffs went 0-2 last season to begin Pac-12 play. But needing a win Saturday to break a current two-game losing streak and maybe reestablish some of their swagger, the Buffs did both against the Trojans – obviously a right-place, right-time opponent.
Still, junior guard Askia Booker, one of four Buffs in double figures Saturday, kept the 21-point blowout in perspective. “We can’t get drunk off of this win,” he said. “USC is pretty low in the (Pac-12) standings and we’re about to go play the No. 1 team in the country. We have to stay locked in as a team.”
The Buffs (15-4 overall, 4-2 Pac-12) finished Saturday with a season-high 10 blocked shots – six shy of the school record – and held the Trojans (9-9, 0-5) to 36 percent shooting from the field while hitting 50.9 percent of their own shots.
CU outrebounded the visitors by 20 (43-23), with redshirt freshman Wesley Gordon collecting a game-high eight rebounds and accounting for five of the Buffs’ blocked shots. He also scored five points, made two assists, got one steal and hit two of his three shots from the field – including his first career 3-pointer.
“I loved the pace of the game,” said Boyle. “Our interior defense was good, blocking shots was good (and) getting off to a 20-2 lead was a confidence builder for our guys.”
Booker called the Buffs’ shot blocking “very important . . . blocked shots lead to transition baskets and that’s where we’re at our best. We’ve got big guys who run and finish.”
USC, said Booker, was noticeably frustrated with having its early shots contested and rejected: “Without a doubt . . . their No. 10 (Pe’Shon Howard) was looking around like, ‘I can’t get a layup up without it being knocked away.’ It’s really good when we’re all locked in and getting that kind of help from the weak side.”
That’s what Booker supplied on one of the more creative and crowd-pleasing first half blocks. Booker, pushing 6-2 in his sneakers, flew in and batted away a layup attempt by Trojans 7-footer D.J. Haley. It was only Booker’s second rejection of the season – and don’t bet on him forgetting it.
“I guess it was a pretty nice block and I’ll probably go watch that again,” Booker said. “It’s not that high; it’s just a good defensive play and we need stops like that whether it’s from me or Jaron (Hopkins) or Josh (Scott).”
CU also was nearly perfect from the free throw line, hitting 19 of 22 (86 percent) with Booker hitting all six of his attempts. He finished with 13 points on three-of-five shooting and had six of CU’s 15 assists.
“He has never had a game like this,” Boyle said. “He played within himself and was efficient. When he’s efficient we’re pretty darn good; I thought he was terrific.”
Booker was one of four Buffs in double figures, topped by Josh Scott’s 20. Xavier Johnson and Jaron Hopkins added 10 points each. J.T. Terrell and 7-2 center Omar Oraby led USC with 16 points apiece.
The Buffs led by as many 18 points in the first half and were up 17 (40-23) at intermission courtesy of a Booker buzzer beater. It came on a sweet step back shot by “Ski,” but it wasn’t indicative of the first-half storyline.
CU was demonic on defense with its shot-blocking spree and holding UCLA to two points for the game’s first 8:18. At the 11:48 mark, the Bruins were one of 12 from the field (8 percent) and the Buffs led 20-2, with the final five points of that bulge coming on two free throws by Booker after a technical foul on USC coach Andy Enfield and a 3-pointer by George King.
None of the Trojans escaped the Buffs’ first-half intensity – not even Enfield. The CU student section harassed him – good naturedly, of course – with a blown up mug shot of his wife, former model Amanda Marcum. But that probably wasn’t what incited the “T;” blame the Buffs for that. There was no discrepancy of personal fouls: USC was whistled for 16, CU for 15.
With Dinwiddie injured, Huskies trounce Buffs
Jan 12th
By Alex Kaufman, CU Sports Information
SEATTLE – The Colorado Buffaloes suffered their first Pac-12 Conference defeat on Sunday afternoon – 71-54 to Washington – but they left for Boulder hoping they hadn’t absorbed a larger loss.
The No. 15 Buffs (14-3, 3-1) appeared to dictate the pace for much of the first half at Alaska Airlines Arena, leading by as many as seven points. But they struggled to find a rhythm after losing junior guard Spencer Dinwiddie to a knee injury with 2:51 left in the half.
Dinwiddie finished with 7 points and 1 assist in 15 minutes. Speaking with reporters after the game, CU coach Tad Boyle expressed concern over the injury to CU’s leading scorer.
“My gut says it’s not good, but we’ll see,” Boyle said. “If he’s out, he’s out. I feel so bad for the kid because he’s worked so hard, but we’ll have to wait and see.”
CU, still off to its best start since the 2005-06 season, had no answer for UW’s C.J. Wilcox. He finished with a game and career-high 31 points on 12-of-18 shooting and was deadly from downtown. The senior guard hit seven three-pointers, including five in the second half, to put the game out of reach.
“Every time he shoots it, you think it’s going in,” Boyle said. “He’s got such a good stroke a good release and he gets it off quickly. A guy who plays without the ball like that is pretty special.”
Colorado committed a season-high 20 turnovers and shot just 1-for-12 (.083) from beyond the arc. Josh Scott, who has now scored in double figures in eight consecutive games, paced the Buffs with 15 points.
“The second half, boy we shot ourselves in the foot. You turn the ball over 20 times against a good team and you’ve got six assists, it’s just a recipe for disaster,” Boyle said. “They’re a good team and they’ve got good players and they’re playing well right now.”
Wesley Gordon, who finished with a season-high 13 rebounds and 11 points, collected 11 boards in the first half en route to posting his first career double-double.
Washington stormed out in the second half with a pair of early three-pointers by Wilcox and Andrew Andrews to erase a four-point halftime deficit, and the Huskies never looked back. They shot a blistering 66.7 percent from the field in the second period (16-of-24), including 70 percent (7-10) from beyond the arc, and capitalized on a number of second-half miscues by the Buffs. CU coughed the ball up 11 times in the second half, which led to 21 Husky points.
Scott’s play was a bright spot for the Buffs in the second half. After a relatively quiet first half, the sophomore forward exploded for 13 points on 3-of-4 shooting and connected on all 7 attempts from the free throw line.
CU returns to the Coors Events Center next week to play UCLA and USC. The Buffaloes tip off against the Bruins Thursday at 6 p.m. before playing the Trojans at noon Saturday.