Posts tagged Sabatino Chen
Dinwiddie Shows No Brotherly Love In CU Win
Dec 6th
By B.G. Brooks, Contributing Editor, CUBuffs.com
BOULDER – Colorado men’s basketball coach Tad Boyle and sophomore guard Spencer Dinwiddie are due for a conversation on in-state basketball etiquette, specifically what not to say before a rivalry game.
But their talk can wait – at least for a year.
After he had scored a career-high 29 points on Wednesday night in leading CU to a grind-it-out 70-61 victory against archrival Colorado State, Dinwiddie said his “little brother” analogy of CSU was, ah, misinterpreted.
“I think they took it as disrespect; I didn’t mean it in a disrespectful way,” a grinning Dinwiddie said. “I have a lot of respect for their team . . . but being able to back up the comment with a win is great; they were on my Twitter a lot.”
He was on the Rams just as fiercely as the Buffs started strong, finished stronger and finally put away the visitors before a record crowd of 11,708 at the Coors Events Center.
“What an atmosphere for college basketball,” Boyle said. “It’s a testament to our fans and how they’ve stepped up and supported us.”
The Buffs got better than average road support last weekend at Wyoming, but their effort wasn’t in synch with their backing. The Cowboys won 76-69, and aside from his team’s first loss, Boyle said “the most disappointing thing was all the people who went up there and we let them down . . . we told our guys that we’re representing more than just ourselves.”
That message, as well as one forcibly delivered in Monday’s smash-mouth practice, surfaced in what Boyle likened to “an NCAA-type game” against CU’s rival from up the road.
In dealing CSU (6-1) its first defeat, CU (7-1) went up by 20 points at halftime, but saw that lead dwindle to three (54-51) in the final 6:45 after a 19-5 Rams run. But a 5-0 Buffs spurt and a recommitment to defense kept the Rams at bay; from the 6:45 mark to the final buzzer, CSU hit only one of its last shots (and that was a trey at the buzzer) and never pulled closer than seven points the rest of the way.
Dinwiddie was 8-of-10 from the field (5-of-7 from beyond the arc) and had an “all-Pac-12 kind of game,” said Boyle. Dinwiddie said he was “just hitting my shots . . . it was more about us playing defense.”
As for Dinwiddie’s idle Tuesday chatter about CSU, Boyle laughed and said, “I’ve got to talk to Spencer about that (but) he backed it up . . . we have to be a little smarter. He just believes in himself and his teammates.”
Junior forward Andre Roberson was the only other CU player in double figures. He picked up his fourth consecutive double-double and the 29th of his career, getting 15 points and 14 rebounds.
CSU got 19 points and 14 rebounds from Colton Iverson and 18 points from Dorian Green. The 6-10, 260-pound Iverson might have been Boyle’s biggest nightmare in the run-up to the Rams, but Boyle wisely rotated 6-10 freshman Josh Scott and 6-11 junior Shane Harris-Tunks on Iverson and made him toil for his totals.
Of Scott, Boyle said, “He grew up tonight as a post defender . . . he was totally different from the Wyoming game.” And Roberson said Harris-Tunks “did a great job of being physical against him.”
The Buffs wanted a solid start – and they might have exceeded their expectations. Before the Rams could blink a couple of times, they trailed 9-0.
Roberson opened the scoring by hitting a soft foul-line jumper (2-0), then followed with an angry stuff after a steal/lob pass by Dinwiddie (4-0). If you thought things were going CU’s way, a banked-in trey by Askia Booker – his only points of the first half – made it 7-0. Then a sweet spin by Sabatino Chen sent the Buffs up 9-0.
And this was their warm-up act.
When CSU blinked again, CU had strung together a 20-5 run and was up 20 (35-15). Before the half was over, the Buffs would lead by 25 (42-17). Dinwiddie jump-started and finished that push, burying three three-pointers and hitting a pair of free throws following a technical foul called on Iverson with 5:18 before halftime.
After the weekend loss at Wyoming, Boyle had challenged his team to be tougher defensively and to rebound with authority. The Rams – the NCAA’s rebound margin leader at plus-17.3 – had a 42-30 advantage for the game, including 18 offensively.
Still, the Buffs’ ‘D’ was exemplary; CSU wound up shooting 35.6 percent from the field (21-for-59) and Boyle said he’d take that statistic over a rebounding edge.
“But I want both,” he added.
CU’s second-half challenge was to keep the pedal down, but CSU had other plans. With Iverson powering for four of his team’s first six points, the Rams opened the last half with a 6-0 run and pulled to within 42-28.
Dinwiddie’s turn . . . his free throw followed by back-to-back treys restored a 17-point (49-32) CU advantage. But rolling over wasn’t for the Rams; a 7-0 run pulled them within 10 points (49-39) with ample time – 13:25 – remaining.
After Boyle called time out, Dinwiddie delivered with a spinning layup (51-39) – and a frantic final 12 minutes began for both teams. The Rams closed their deficit to single digits (54-45) on a banker from the left side by Wes Eikmeier.
It was the closest they had been since 22-13, and they would get to 54-47 on a pair of Green free throws, 54-49 on an Iverson layup, then 54-51 on an Eikmeier layup with 6:45 left. That basket capped a 10-0 CSU run, and Boyle called time out.
Said Roberson: “We were focusing on continuing to get stops. We knew they would come back with a run, that they weren’t going to go away . . . we called a timeout and got everybody to calm down, keep our composure and get back to our defensive rebounding.”
A Dinwiddie free throw at the 6:21 mark finally got CU a point, a twisting lay-in by Booker got the Buffs two more, and a put-back by Scott pushed CU’s advantage to 59-51. They went back up by double digits (63-52) on a drive by Chen with just over 3 minutes remaining.
The Rams never got closer than seven points the rest of the night, and Boyle’s record against CSU went to 4-3 – 2-1 at CU. The word of the day to his team, he said, was “dictate . . . that was on our board in the locker room. Dictate tempo and pressure; let them know they were in for 40 minutes of in-your-face basketball . . . they did cut it to three but we didn’t lose our composure.”
Now, said Boyle, his team must do as it did Wednesday on a more consistent basis. “It feels good because we beat a good team; we knew how good CSU was,” he said. “It’s huge, but we’ve got a big game on Saturday.”
That would be at Boyle’s alma mater, No. 9 Kansas (noon MST, ESPN2). Boyle is 0-3 against the Jayhawks, with all three losses coming in his first season at CU.
Buffs Fall Hard In First True Road Test
Dec 2nd
LARAMIE, Wyo. – The Colorado Buffaloes knew their first true road test of the season would be difficult, but they might have made it harder than it had to be.
Committing 17 turnovers while managing just 11 assists and allowing Wyoming’s inside game – read: Leonard Washington – to dominate, the No. 19 Buffs were overrun by the Cowboys 76-69 on Saturday night in the boisterous Arena-Auditorium.
“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why we lost this game,” said CU coach Tad Boyle, citing an assist-to-turnover ratio that continues to disappoint, 14 layups allowed (seven in each half) and his team permitting Wyoming to shoot 52 percent in the second half of a game that the Buffs led by two (28-26) at intermission.
Continued Boyle, who watched his team lose for the first time this season (6-1) and only the second time in its last 13 games: “I’m disappointed in our execution in the second half. We have to get better in a lot of different areas.”
The Cowboys’ 6-7 Leonard Washington scored a team-high 22 points – most of them inside as Wyoming outscored CU 30-24 in the paint. The unbeaten Cowboys (8-0) also turned the Buffs’ 17 turnovers, which tied the season high, into 20 points.
Spencer Dinwiddie led the Buffs with 24 points and Andre Roberson added 16 and 12 rebounds – his 28th career double-double. CU’s other pair of top scorers – guard Askia Booker and post Josh Scott – accounted for 11 points between them. Booker (16.8 ppg) was held to a season-low six points – a three-pointer in each half, while Scott (14.5 ppg) scored five before fouling out.
Two of Scott’s teammates – Roberson and Sabatino Chen – also fouled out. The Buffs were whistled for 27 fouls to the Cowboys’ 13, a disparity that Boyle believes worked too much on some of his players’ psyches.
“It’s going to happen,” he said. “We’ve got to figure out a way to overcome that. They can get frustrated and bitch about it all they want – it doesn’t change things. The way you do that is with mental toughness and not let it get in your head, get you out of your game.”
Boyle also pointed to a hustle play made by Washington midway through the second half that he believed epitomized the night for the Buffs. It occurred when the Cowboys began pulling away with an 11-3 run. Washington went to floor for a loose ball, corralled it and called time out. Meanwhile, five CU players bent at their waists and poked at the ball.
“He out-scrapped us and got it,” Boyle said. “He ‘beasted’ us last year (16 points in a 64-54 Wyoming win). What you saw with Leonard Washington was a senior who was playing his last time against a team like Colorado that was in the Top 25. He wanted this game . . . he took four or five charges himself. It was in the scouting report.”
The Buffs, said Boyle, failed to play hard, smart or together: “We’ve got guys who have to change their identities from offensive players to defensive players, defensive players to rebounders, screeners, passers – and then let the offense come to you . . . we’ve got a lot of guys on this team who can put the ball in the basket. Not just Josh, Ski, Spencer, Andre – guys coming off the bench can (score). But our mindset right now is not a collective one, not what it needs to be.”
Booker, who was 2-of-13 from the field (one trey in each half), “does not handle adversity well,” Boyle said. “He has to get better when his jump shot’s not going in and when the officiating isn’t bailing him out. That’s the bottom line. He knows it, I know it, the assistant coaches know it, his teammates know it. Until he does, he’s going to be frustrated on nights like this because people are going to start face-guarding him, bumping him, being physical . . . he’s got to figure it out.”
The Buffs, as a whole, have until Wednesday night to figure out how to solve the deficiencies Boyle has laid out for them. Archrival Colorado State (6-0) visits the Coors Events Center in the second game of men’s/women’s doubleheader, and if CU doesn’t improve over the next three days, CSU “will obliterate us,” Boyle said. “They’ve got a toughness about them. You talk about rebounding and defending, look at Colorado State. They rebound and defend. They’re exactly what we need to be, and that’s why they’re undefeated right now. We’ve might have lost a little bit of our hunger now, I don’t know. We’ll find out Wednesday night.”
The 6-10 Scott wouldn’t concede that the Buffs have encountered complacency. “We’re as hungry as ever,” he said. “I know all of us are really competitive, we all want to be the best we can be.”
If they weren’t at their best in Saturday night’s first half, they were close enough to stay competitive. With Wyoming’s largest crowd (8,240) in eight seasons watching, the first half might have unfolded just as CU envisioned. The Cowboys aren’t interested in getting up and down the court, and they made sure the visitors couldn’t. Neither team had a fast-break basket in the opening 20 minutes.
CU did manage a two-point lead in a first half that featured seven ties and eight lead changes, but the Buffs’ 28 points was their lowest first-half output of the season. It was an omen, for CU finished shooting 41.4 percent from the field (24-of-58) for their lowest percentage of the season.
The Buffs encountered early foul problems, with Roberson, Xavier Johnson and Josh Scott seeing their minutes limited after picking up two fouls each. Roberson played nine minutes but still had seven first-half point, tying Dinwiddie for the team lead. Scott and Johnson played 10 minutes each. The Buffs stayed close, even leading on a couple of occasions, in the first 5 minutes of the second half. It didn’t help CU when Scott was whistled for his third foul at the 12:45 mark and went to the bench for 4 minutes. Wyoming went up by six (45-39) on an inside basket and free throw by Washington and two free throws by Luke Martinez.
A Dinwiddie trey cut the deficit in half (45-42), but the Cowboys reeled off an 11-3 run and suddenly were up 51-42 with 9:16 remaining. And in this game, at Wyoming’s pace, a nine-point lead looked pretty cushy. Boyle called a timeout to settle the Buffs.
CU pulled to within five (55-50), but a Washington desperation three-pointer with the shot clock at one second restored Wyoming’s eight-point lead (58-50) at the 5:12 mark.
If the Buffs were going to remain unbeaten, it would be up to their defense. But allowing a full-court pass to Martinez on an out-of-bounds wasn’t the way to finish strong. His layup pushed the Cowboys back up by nine (61-52) with just under 4 minutes remaining – and it was all Wyoming thereafter.
Said Dinwiddie: “We didn’t play defense, plain and simple. They buckled down and made plays and we didn’t make plays.”
Dinwiddie claimed the loud Cowboys crowd didn’t disrupt the Buffs: “I don’t think so . . . we missed some shots, but I don’t think the crowd had much to do with it. The crowd doesn’t change the way the opposing team plays defense.”
Now comes CSU, which edged CU 65-64 last season in Fort Collins. Dinwiddie said Saturday night’s first loss of this season doesn’t make the Rams’ visit to Boulder any more significant: “It’s a big game either way. They’re probably going to be Top 25 now, we might or might not still. It’s our place, they beat us last year and rushed the court.
“They’re our biggest rival. You really can’t set the stage any higher than it already was . . . it’s still going to be crazy. We want to prove to ourselves more than anything (and) get back to the way we should be playing.”
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Brooks: Young Buffs Bring Home Charleston Championship
Nov 19th
CHARLESTON, S.C. – If some of the Colorado Buffaloes are still wet behind the ears, they are also gritty beyond their years. The young Buffs capped a rugged three-game run with an 81-74 win against Murray State here Sunday night to win the Charleston Classic, giving CU its first in-season tournament title since the 2002-03 team won the Pepsi Classic in Charlotte, N.C.
It was a good week for CU in the dank, drizzly Old South for a number of reasons, starting with:
- Sophomore Askia Booker compiled 58 points in three games – a 19.3 average and a career-high 23 in the championship game – and was named the tournament’s MVP. No other Buffs were chosen to the all-tournament team, more of a testament to the strong and individually talented field than a CU slight.
- After successfully defending three premier point guards – Dayton’s Kevin Dillard, Baylor’s Pierre Jackson, Murray State’s Isaiah Canaan – CU sophomore Spencer Dinwiddie might return to Boulder with a lock-down rep. He was into them like a virus. “He did a great job . . . he took on the responsibility of their guards,” Booker said. “I give all the praise to him. He took all the pressure off of me.” But Dinwiddie also found time to score: He finished the championship game with 13 points.
- Freshmen post Josh Scott and Xavier Johnson and freshmen guards Eli Stalzer and Xavier Talton did what was asked of them in their roles. Scott scored nine of his 13 points in Sunday night’s decisive second half, when CU wanted to take the battle to Murray State in the low block. He also snagged six rebounds. Stalzer and Talton spelled Booker and Dinwiddie. Johnson, said coach Tad Boyle, let a couple of fouls diminish his aggression.
- Junior Andre Roberson scored for the first time in double figures (16) this season and finished one rebound short (nine) of his first double-double this year. Even though it was waved off because of an alleged charge, he had a thunderous dunk in the second half that Boyle called an energy boost for his team.
- The Buffs discovered that, yes, they can shoot free throws when a game is on the line. After clanking and clunking them in the first two games – including missing 14 of 18 against Baylor – they sank 27 of 36 Sunday night. In the game’s final 7:58, CU hit 18 of 20. Dinwiddie stuck 11 of 12.
- And Boyle went to 4-0 for the first time in his three seasons as CU’s head coach and now must find room for the Charleston Classic trophy along the Pac-12 Conference tournament hardware his team claimed last March. Boyle also got a congratulatory handshake Sunday night from Bill Murray – no relation to Murray State – and promised he “didn’t throw any Caddy Shack lines at him. He probably gets that all the time. It was good to meet him and he said he liked our team.”
What wasn’t to like about the Buffs in their three games here, particularly Sunday night? CU advanced to the championship game with a 67-57 win against Dayton, then by edging No. 16 Baylor 60-58. Murray State started four seniors and a junior from a team that went 32-2 last season.
Booker called winning the tournament “a confidence booster for everybody. We played three good teams . . . we can play with anybody. There’s nobody in the country we can’t compete against and win. We play team ball and it comes down to defense and rebounding at the end of the day. Coach tells that to us every day.”
Shooting 45.2 percent from the field, the Racers are the only team this season the Buffs haven’t held below their goal of 40 percent. But CU outrebounded Murray State 35-30 and won the board battle in two of the three games here.
Boyle was particularly proud of his team’s ball screen defense against the high-profile three point guard the Buffs faced. “It was a team victory, offensively and defensively, and I couldn’t be more proud of our team and players,” he said.
But Boyle, of course, believes there can/will be improvement through November. The Buffs don’t play during Thanksgiving week, returning to the Coors Events Center on Sunday, Nov. 25 to face Air Force (6 p.m., Pac-12 Network). Boyle is looking at this week as quality practice time.
CU led 33-31 at halftime Sunday night, rallying from a pair of six-point deficits. Boyle had cautioned his team about Canaan’s long-range shooting, and it didn’t take long for the CU coach’s words to ring true. The 6-1 senior took six of Murray State’s 14 first-half three-point attempts and hit half of them – the last two appearing a couple of steps beyond NBA range.
Dinwiddie rolled his eyes in disbelief. “People just don’t do that,” he said. “Not that people can’t, but it’s just the coach never says please go and shoot a 35-footer. So I wasn’t expecting it. He’s a great player, very difficult to guard.”
Canaan finished with a team-best 21 points, but didn’t hit a trey in the second half.
The Buffs hurt themselves with a season-worst 11 first-half turnovers, exceeding their first two game totals here by two. But they continued to compensate with defense and rebounding, holding the Racers to 35.7 percent from the field (10-of-28) and outboarding them 19-14. And in the second half, CU cut its turnovers to six.
The Buffs opened the second half with a 6-2 run, getting baskets from Johnson, Sabatino Chen and Roberson to go up 39-33, with that six-point advantage CU’s largest of the game. But Boyle also had warned his players to keep 6-7 Ed Daniel off the glass, and the next two Racers possessions showed why. A put-back stuff cut the Buffs lead to 39-35 and a layup on the next trip made it 39-37.
Then Murray State’s three-point shooters switched on. Stacy Wilson hit one, giving the Racers a 40-39 lead, Dinwiddie banked in a trey to push the Buffs back in front 42-40, then Dexter Fields answered with a triple to give Murray State a 43-42 edge.
A back-and-forth half appeared to be underway until CU unleashed a 6-0 run highlighted by back-to-back stuffs by Scott on a baseline move and Booker on a breakaway. That surge opened a 48-45 Buffs lead with just under 12 minutes remaining.
Seconds later, after Murray State coach Steve Prohm was whistled for a technical, a pair of Dinwiddie free throws sent CU’s advantage to 50-45. Things were heating up. Roberson picked up his third foul when he was called for a charge on his he-man jam over Daniel.
At the 10 minute mark, a sweet baseline move by Scott resulted in a layup and capped a 10-0 run that had opened a 52-45 CU lead. Murray State was far from done, answering with a 7-0 run capped by another trey by Fields to tie the score at 52-52 with 8 minutes left.
The next 3 minutes were all Buffs; they went on an 11-1 run highlighted by free throws from Scott, Adams and Chen; another Scott field goal from the low post and a Booker trey from the left wing.
With 5:02 to play, CU led 63-53. Murray State closed to 63-58 on a conventional three-point play by Daniel – and Roberson also picked up his fourth foul on that play.
At 1:51, another trey by Fields brought the Racers to 68-65 and prompted a timeout by Prohm. CU answered with a free throw line jumper by Booker, two free throws by Chen. Wilson hit a long trey with a minute remaining (72-68), but Scott negated that with a layup and a free throw to restore CU’s seven-point lead (75-68).
Roberson fouled out with 13.4 seconds left, sending Daniel to the free throw line for a potential three-point play. But he missed and the Buffs’ lead was 77-72. Dinwiddie hit another four free throws in the final 10 seconds and this one was done.
Winning the tournament, he said, “means a lot; it gets our players used to winning. We don’t want our team ever to get used to losing. It kind of builds that pride and sense of urgency, that will to say we don’t lose. Period. That’s just what it is.”
Should the Buffs be included in this week’s Top 25? Booker said it “doesn’t matter,” Dinwiddie said, “Yes . . . keep it conservative and go like (No.) 17.”
The Buffs did their parts in Charleston, the polls are best left to others. It’s very early in a long season, but you can’t help but feel a buzz from how it’s started.
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