Posts tagged Spencer Dinwiddie
CU men: “No sense of urgency” leads to defeat by the last place team in PAC-12
Mar 10th
Colorado took a step down on Saturday afternoon, losing to the Pac-12 Conference team in last-place team entering the final weekend of play. But the Buffaloes won’t have to wait long to avenge the loss.
Oregon State upset CU 64-58 at the Coors Events Center in the final regular-season game for both teams. CU defeated OSU 72-68 last month in Corvallis, and the Buffs will get the chance to play the Beavers again next week in the Pac-12 Tournament in Las Vegas.
With Washington State upsetting Southern California on Saturday, Oregon State becomes the tournament’s No. 12 seed, drawing No. 5 CU on Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. MST at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
The last time the Buffs ended the regular season with an opponent they would play five days later occurred in the 2009-10 season. CU defeated Texas Tech at the CEC, the lost to the Red Raiders in the first round of the Big 12 Conference Tournament.
CU shot only 35 percent from the field Saturday and had only one player – Spencer Dinwiddie with 18 – in double figures. The Beavers shot 43.5 percent and out-rebounded the Buffs 38-32.
The Buffaloes finished with a 20-10 overall record and a 10-8 league mark, while the Beavers closed out at 14-17 and 4-14. Colorado’s 20-win season is its third straight, a school record for three consecutive years and the first time a CU coach has recorded three 20-win seasons. Spencer Dinwiddie had 18 points
But third-year Buffs coach Tad Boyle wasn’t happy.
“I want to apologize to everyone in this building for our performance,” Boyle said to the crowd before recognizing senior Sabatino Chen and graduating junior Shane Harris-Tunks at the post-game Senior Day ceremony. Chen scored nine points while Harris-Tunks added four.
The Buffs got off to a sloppy start, committing five turnovers in the first 10 minutes compared to the Beavers’ one. At the 12:42 mark, a three by OSU’s Victor Robbins followed by an Eric Moreland jumper gave the Beavers a 14-9 lead.
But Colorado, led by Chen, responded. Over the next 2.5 minutes, Chen scored on a layup, assisted a Xavier Talton layup, then grabbed a steal and turned that into a three-pointer to put the Buffs up 16-14. CU held onto the lead for the rest of the half and led 29-27 at the break.
Boyle said Chen did just what he should offensively against OSU’s zone defense.
“Usually when a team plays zone, they’re playing because they don’t feel like they can guard you man-to-man, so you let them off the hook by taking quick jump shots and by not attacking and moving the ball,” Boyle said. “Sabatino, with all the things he gives you, [is] the epitome of what we want young men to be as student athletes at the University of Colorado.”
At intermission, Chen led in scoring with seven points, the first time in his career he has been the Buffs’ leading scorer at half.
Out of the locker room, though, OSU found its momentum. The Beavers went on a 15-6 run to take a 42-33 lead with 15:08 remaining, and the Buffs spent the rest of the half trying to recover.
Sophomore guard Askia Booker, who ended the game with eight points and no rebounds, said that recovery attempt just didn’t have enough energy.
“There was no sense of urgency whatsoever,” Booker said. “Especially on the defensive end, and that’s where we’re going to win games.”
While the Beavers built their largest lead of the game – eight at the 10:15 mark – the Buffs did put together a late comeback attempt in the final two minutes that nearly made up the difference. CU was down 56-50 with 2:10 remaining when a Dinwiddie trey closed the gap to three.
Dinwiddie was the only scorer for CU in those final minutes. While he would hit another basket with 51.2 seconds on the clock and make three of three free throws with 28.8 remaining, OSU’s Roberto Nelson responded on nearly every Beaver possession.
By the final buzzer, the Buffs were down six to close out their regular season with a rare home loss to the Pac-12’s lowest-ranked team. CU is 12-3 in the CEC this season and 44-7 at home in Boyle’s three season. Of the three home conference games CU has dropped this season (UCLA, Arizona State, Oregon State), Saturday’s was by the largest scoring margin.
Boyle made no excuses for his team’s performance, saying that while he’d already talked to his players about his disappointment, he’d take the blame for the loss outside of the locker room.
“This one is on me as head coach. We weren’t ready to play today, mentally, emotionally or physically,” Boyle said. “You get what you deserve in life, and we got what we deserved.”
The 2011-12 Buffs were in a similar position at the end of the regular season, as they dropped their final two contests against Oregon and Oregon State on the road and nearly missed out on an NCAA Tournament berth. Knowing that they would need a conference tournament championship to earn their spot, they responded and took home the Pac-12 Conference Tournament trophy.
Dinwiddie said last year’s postseason story was all about the seniors.
“We just kind of banded together as brothers, we understood what we were playing for,” Dinwiddie said. “We had four seniors on the roster that were never going to have this opportunity again . . . so we just wanted to give them a special time.”
This year’s Buffs are young. Just two players — Chen, a senior, and Shane Harris-Tunks, who is graduating in May as a redshirt junior — see this postseason as the beginning of the end.
And while Boyle won’t reflect for long on last season’s glory, he said his team will enter Wednesday’s Pac-12 Tournament first round with a very similar mindset.
“We are going to approach the Pac-12 Tournament this year just like we did last year,” Boyle said. “We have to get ready to play whoever is placed in front of us. It is not about winning four games in four days, it is about beating whoever our first round opponent is and living for another day.”
[includeme src=”http://c1n.tv/boulder/media/bouldersponsors.html” frameborder=”0″ width=”670″ height=”300″]
CU Buffs Down Oregon Ducks
Mar 8th
By B.G. Brooks, CUBuffs.com Contributing Editor
BOULDER -After thee, one-point victories over the Ducks. Colorado put the hurt on Oregon 76-53.
It was an outrageous, out-of-sight blowout Thursday night at the sold-out (11,013) Coors Events Center, and at night’s end CU savored a sweep of Oregon and its fourth win in six games this season against a Top 25 opponent.
If the Buffs needed another highlight on their NCAA Tournament resume, this was it. And if coach Tad Boyle needed another milestone win in his three-year CU career, he can put a check by this one.
“I told the team in the locker room I have been coaching division one basketball for 18 years now and I am not sure I have been more proud of a group of guys with what they did and how they stepped up,” Boyle said. “Our starters, bench, whoever we put in there played their hearts out and we beat a good solid basketball team.
Unfortunately, we cannot enjoy it as much as we would like to, we have to get ready for Saturday, and this was a gutty effort with a great basketball team.”
The Buffs, now 9-3 in their last 12 games, close the regular season on Sunday against Oregon State (2:30 p.m., CEC).
In the absence of the 6-7 Roberson, who is day-to-day with a viral illness, the Buffs took up the slack by committee. Their headliner was freshman Xavier Johnson, who responded with a career-high 22 points. He was perfect from the field, hitting seven-of-seven, including three-of-three from beyond the arc, and was five-of-six from the free throw line.
Boyle called Johnson’s performance “terrific . . . his performance was big time, when you make shots it covers up a lot of things and we were not able to do that at Cal but we were able to do it tonight. I was really proud of him stepping up because he is a guy that with Andre being out we needed to count on.”
Sophomore guards Spencer Dinwiddie and Askia Booker added 17 and 11, respectively. Dinwiddie contributed seven rebounds and Booker six. Junior Jeremy Adams left the bench for seven points, and senior Sabatino Chen – opening in Roberson’s place – got six.
Oregon has three players with 10 points each – Jonathan Lloyd, Ben Carter and Arsalan Kazemi.
Chen returning the starting five gave the Buffs a smaller than usual lineup that produced matchup problems for the Ducks. Said Oregon coach Dana Altman: “They went small and we had a little trouble with that and then (Xavier) Johnson stepped up and hit a lot of shots, so he played really well. (He) really made a big difference in the game.”
Even without Roberson’s 11.5-board average (he also averages 10.8 points) and fierce defensive presence, the Buffs outrebounded the Ducks 38-35 and held them to 35.7 percent shooting. CU now has held nine consecutive Pac-12 Conference opponents under 70 points – the most since 16 foes were held under 70 during the entire 1962 Big Eight season and the first two games of the following season.
“Rebounding is always our emphasis,” Dinwiddie said. “We like to say that defensive rebounding is the pillar of our program. But of course when someone like Andre goes out and rebounding is their specialty, you have to pick up the slack in that area. We just all had to pick up the rebounds as a team.”
CU improved to 20-9 overall – its school-record third 20-win season, all under Boyle – and 10-7 in the Pac-12. Oregon, needing a win to clinch a tie for first place in the conference, leaves Boulder 23-7, 12-5.
CU has had its share of injury/illness problems over the past three weeks. Freshman center Josh Scott was in his second game back since missing two with a concussion. He returned last weekend at California, scoring four points but hauling down 11 rebounds, and he collected eight on Thursday night with another four points.
Then comes Roberson’s illness . . . but the Buffs were a team on a mission. Johnson said Roberson’s absence “puts a lot of pressure on the freshman and everybody else, knowing that we have to make up for those rebounds. So, we just tried to do the best we could.”
The Ducks scored the game’s first basket – a jumper by E.J. Singler – but it was their last lead of the night. By intermission, despite Boyle having to sub liberally because of two fouls each on five of his key players, CU had rolled to a 37-21 lead – the Buffs’ largest halftime advantage of the season in Pac-12 play.
CU’s first-half defense was stifling, limiting Oregon to 18 percent shooting (3-for-16) in the first 10 minutes. By intermission the Ducks’ shooting had improved, but not by much – 7-for-26 (27 percent). The Buffs, meanwhile, improved on their 23 percent shooting last weekend at Cal, going 13-of-27 (48 percent) and hitting half of their eight three-point attempts.
Needing to at least maintain their intensity to open the second half, the Buffs took it a step further, outscoring the visitors 8-4 over the first 5 minutes to race ahead by 20 (45-25).
With 12:31 to play, CU pushed its advantage to 24 (55-31) on a pair of Dinwiddie free throws after a flagrant foul on Oregon. The Ducks could only get as close as 17 points in the final 10 minutes, and the Buffs pushed their advantage to 25 (71-46) before it was over.
[includeme src=”http://c1n.tv/boulder/media/bouldersponsors.html” frameborder=”0″ width=”670″ height=”300″]
C
Roberson’s Career-High 24 Pushes Buffs Past Cardinal
Feb 28th
Release: 2/27/2013
STANFORD, Calif. – Andre Roberson woke up “sick and woozy” on Wednesday morning. By Wednesday night, he was much, much better – and Stanford was feeling ill.
Behind Roberson’s career-high 24 points and eight rebounds, Colorado edged the Cardinal 65-63, giving the Buffaloes their first Pac-12 Conference sweep of Stanford and their first-ever win at Maples Pavilion.
“Our players deserved that win,” said CU coach Tad Boyle, whose team improved to 19-8 overall and 9-6 in the conference.
“For what they’ve been through, how they battled and the heart they played with, they deserved that.”
Roberson, a 6-7 junior, got scoring help from sophomore Spencer Dinwiddie with 19. They were the only two CU players in double figures.
In a postgame interview on KOA Radio, Roberson said after waking up feeling subpar on Wednesday morning, “I drank a lot of fluids, took some medicine. But Trae (Tashiro, trainer) had me on the right path and I had to come out here and take care of business. You have to fight through it.”
The win kept the Buffs in contention for the No. 4 seed in the Pac-12 tournament (March 13-16, Las Vegas). Said Roberson: “This means a lot for us . . . also in terms of the Pac-12 standings we’re trying to get that fourth seed. We’ll see how it goes.”
[includeme src=”http://c1n.tv/boulder/media/bouldersponsors.html” frameborder=”0″ width=”670″ height=”300″]
Stanford (16-13, 7-9) had three players in double digits – Andy Brown with 17, Chasson Randle with 16 and Dwight Powell with 12. Powell almost ended with 14 points, taking an in-bounds pass with 2.4 seconds to play, turning on Roberson and going to the basket for a jam that would have sent the game into overtime.
But he had too much court to cover in too little time – and Roberson knew it. “I knew they were going to play the three or attack the rim,” Roberson said. “He went past me and I said, ‘Oh, shoot’ . . . but the ball was still in his hand when the light went off.”
After a collective CU sigh that might have rattled windows in the Rockies, the Buffs had their eighth win in 10 games and their third consecutive conference road win for the first time since the 2000-01 season.
Boyle called Roberson “a beast” for his offensive effort and lauded his overall defense on the 6-10 Powell. Boyle also said when Dinwiddie “plays aggressively and attacks the rim, and Andre plays like he did, those two are special.”
But overall, it was another special night for the Buffs. They won without 6-10 freshman center Josh Scott, who received an elbow to the head on Feb. 16 against Arizona State and did not play last week against Utah. Scott made the trip to the Bay Area but was held out of Wednesday night’s game. In CU’s 75-54 win against Stanford on Jan. 24, Scott scored 12 points and grabbed five rebounds.
Scott’s status for Saturday, when CU plays at fast-improving California (2 p.m. MST, ESPNU), is to be determined. Against Cal in Boulder on Jan. 27, Scott contributed five points and three rebounds. Nonetheless, the Buffs won 81-71, but since then the Bears have won seven of eight – including five straight.
Boyle said Scott “is getting closer every day . . . we wouldn’t have brought him if we didn’t think there wasn’t a chance of him playing.”
CU led only once (2-0) in Wednesday night’s first half and trailed 32-31 at intermission. Over the first 6:00, the Buffs shot horrendously, making only two of their first 13 shots and trailing by as many as 10 points (15-5).
But they refused to roll over, launching an 11-2 run that brought them to within 17-16 with 10:06 left before the break. They forged ties at 25-25 and 27-27 before the Cardinal answered with a 5-0 run to go up 32-27.
But CU closed the half with baskets by Dinwiddie and Jeremy Adams to account for their one-point deficit at intermission.
Dinwiddie’s 10 points topped the Buffs in the first 20 minutes, followed by Roberson with eight and Adams with seven off the bench, giving him 13 in the first halves of his last two games.
The difference in the first half for Stanford was its three-point shooting; the Cardinal hit five of their nine trey attempts while the Buffs were one of eight from beyond the arc. Stanford finished 9-of-20, CU 4-of-18.
The Buffs shot 42.9 percent from the field to the Cardinal’s 39.0 percent and outrebounded the home team 34-33. CU scored 36 points in the paint to Stanford’s 22.
The Buffs made only one of their first four shots over the first four-plus minutes of the second half, and the Cardinal outscored them 8-2 to go ahead 40-33 with 15:36 remaining. And when Randle drained a three-pointer from the right wing,
Stanford had matched its largest lead of the game – 10 points – at 43-33.
But as they did in the first half facing a 10-point deficit, the Buffs had a swift response. Dinwiddie scored five points to spark an 8-0 run, pulling CU to within two (43-41) with 11:50 to play. Less than two minutes later, a triple by Roberson with the shot clock at :02 brought the Buffs to within one (45-44).
And “Dre” was just getting started. He drained another trey, followed that with a layup, then watched Askia Booker hit a layup to send CU ahead 51-45 – the Buffs’ largest lead of the night.
After trailing by 10, CU had strung together an 18-5 run, but Stanford wasn’t finished. Another Randle three-ball, followed by a Brown tip, brought the Cardinal back to 51-50.
But the Buffs didn’t surrender the lead, going up by as many as six before a Josh Huestis tip brought the Cardinal to 61-59.
Dinwiddie answered with a layup (63-59) but he also got a technical foul for touching the ball after it came through the net.
Aaron Bright hit one of two free throws (63-60), but Roberson was fouled on a rebound and hit two free throws (65-60) with 15.1 seconds to play. Then a Brown triple from the left corner pulled Stanford to 65-63.
Dinwiddie was fouled with 4 seconds showing, but missed the front end of his one-and-one. Stanford controlled the rebound and called timeout with 2.4 seconds left. Powell got the inbounds pass, pivoted and went to the basket and jammed it . . . but it was too late.
“I saw the light go off (around the backboard),” a relieved Boyle said. “It was a break this team needs and deserves . . . Powell made a good play, there wasn’t just enough time for him, thank goodness.”