Posts tagged Tad Boyle
Buffs Withstand Cardinal Rally, Hold On For 59-56 Win
Mar 6th
STANFORD, Calif. – After back-to-back losses, the Colorado men’s basketball team got the win it desperately needed, holding on to defeat Stanford 59-56 Wednesday night in a game that likely will prove to be critical as March Madness looms.
Colorado (21-9, 10-7 Pac-12) withstood a Stanford comeback at Maples Pavilion and made free throws down the stretch to pick up its 21st regular season victory, matching the 1996-97 team for the best in school history.
“Getting a victory like this on the road is huge for our team,” CU coach Tad Boyle said on KOA Radio 850. “This team has an opportunity to set itself apart from any other team in the University of Colorado basketball history.”
Securing the win, Boyle continued, “wasn’t easy. Our defense played good enough to keep us in the game until our offense got back going.”
Leading 46-38 after a jumper by Askia Booker with 14:15 to play, the Buffaloes watched the Cardinal (18-11, 9-8) come back to tie the game at 46-46. CU didn’t score again until Xavier Johnson’s jump shot with 5:59 remaining produced a 48-46 lead.
A 13-2 run briefly gave Stanford a late lead, but CU refused to wilt. Although still trailing the Cardinal 9-6 in the series, the Buffaloes lead 3-2 in Pac-12 play with three consecutive wins. It is the longest winning streak in the series dating to 1932.
“This was a big win for us,” said Johnson, one of two Buffs in double figures with 14 points. “For us to go nine minutes without scoring and still come out with the victory means that we’ve made great progress as a team.”
Josh Scott led CU with 17 points and 11 rebounds, posting his 12th double-double of the season and the 14th of his career.
Chasson Randle dominated for Stanford, scoring a game-high 24 points on 9-for-18 shooting from the field, while teammate Josh Huestis added nine points.
Colorado had a comfortable eight point lead in the second half until Randle single-handedly brought the Cardinal back. In its 13-2 run, Randle accounted for 10 points, including a 7-0 run of his own. Thanks in part to his heroics, Stanford managed to recapture its first lead since the 11:29 mark in the first half.
But the Buffs refused to crumble, answering with a 7-0 run capped by a Xavier Talton 3-pointer to take a 55-51 lead. However, Randle answered again with a conventional three-point play to bring Stanford within one (55-54) with 1:17 remaining.
With 45 seconds left, Colorado committed a shot-clock violation, giving Stanford possession. The Cardinal again looked to Randle for the lead but Askia Booker stripped him of the ball and then connected on 1-of-2 free throws after being fouled.
After a Stanford 3-point attempt rimmed out, Scott came away with the rebound, then gave the Buffs a four-point lead by hitting two free throws.
Talton was the last Buff to go to the free throw line, making one of two and putting CU up 59-56. Randle had one last chance to be Stanford’s hero, but his final trey attempt was off the mark.
CU, which led 33-28 at halftime, got some first-half production from Ben Mills and Eli Stalzer (seven points combined) to help the offense find its groove. The Buffs shot close to 50 percent from the field (11-of-24) while holding Stanford to merely 30 percent shooting (10-of-32) in the first 20 minutes.
Colorado benefited as forward Dwight Powell, Stanford’s second- leading scorer (14.6 ppg) and rebounder (7.5 rpg), limited himself by picking up three personal fouls in the first half and then committing his fourth personal with 11:54 remaining in the game.
Powell would foul out with 2 minutes remaining in the contest, finishing with just eight points and two rebounds in 28 minutes.
Under Boyle, Colorado is now 39-2 when out-rebounding and holding its opponent to under 40 percent from the field. The Buffaloes edged Stanford 39-31 on the boards and held the Cardinal to 36 percent (21-of-57) on its field goal attempts.
Colorado concludes the regular season and its Bay-Area road trip with a game at California on Saturday (4:30 p.m. MST, Pac-12 Network). The Pac-12 Tournament begins on March 12 in Las Vegas.
MBB: Buffs choke down the stretch
Mar 1st
Buffs Falter In 75-64 Pac-12 Loss
by B.G. Brooks
SALT LAKE CITY – For the Colorado men’s basketball team, the start of second halves has become the beginning of the end. The Buffaloes’ all-too-familiar script for failure played out again Saturday in a 75-64 Pac-12 Conference loss to Utah.
After a 30-30 halftime tie, the Utes outscored the Buffs 15-2 to open the second half and take a 45-32 lead. But that was a mere continuation of the last stages of the first 20 minutes. Over those final 4-plus minutes and the first 7-plus of the second half, Utah outscored its visitors from the other side of the Rockies 23-2.
And Senior Day at the Jon M. Huntsman Center was all but a wrap.
“Right now second halves are baffling when it comes to the Buffs,” coach Tad Boyle said. “This is three out of the last four games when you go back to UCLA . . . same way. They just had their way with us offensively in the second half – Arizona and now Utah. It happens once you think, OK, maybe somebody got hot, it’s an aberration. But it’s not . . . we’ve got to look at ourselves in the mirror and understand that right now we’re not good enough in the second half defensively.”
In an 88-61 home loss to No. 4 Arizona last weekend, the Buffs allowed the Wildcats to shoot 84.9 percent from the field in the second half. Saturday, the Utes made 70.8 percent of their second-half field goal attempts. Utah also outrebounded CU by three after losing the board battle by 18 in Boulder in the Buffs’ 79-75 overtime win.
Boyle called that a “big swing,” but pointed to porous defense as a culprit for even the slightest board advantage. “There’s not a lot of rebounds to be had,” he said. “That’s why it gets down to defense. When you’re taking the ball out of the next 70 or 85 percent of the time – holy cow, you better be making a lot of shots. I don’t think there’s an offense out there in college basketball to overcome those numbers.”
The Buffs (20-9, 9-7) closed to within nine points twice in the final 10 minutes Saturday but came no closer as the Utes (19-9, 8-8) improved to 18-2 at home this season. The Utes have now won 21 of 24 at the Huntsman Center dating to last season.
Jordan Loveridge and Delon Wright led Utah with 21 points each, while CU had two players in double figures – Josh Scott with 17 and Xavier Johnson with 10. Askia Booker finished with four points, a pair of first-half free throws and one field goal in the second half.
Freshman Dustin Thomas, who went scoreless in the teams’ first meeting last month in Boulder, hit a 3-pointer to open Saturday’s scoring and got CU’s first seven points as the Buffs took a 7-2 lead.
“I came out with confidence. I knew we had to jump on them early and I wanted to do what I could do for the team,” Thomas said.
CU led by as many as eight (30-22) before an 8-0 Utah run – courtesy of treys by Loveridge and Brandon Taylor – produced a 30-30 halftime tie. The Utes never led in the first half, and it was the first time this season the Buffs have been tied at intermission.
Then came another second-half swoon . . .
“We turned the ball over and we didn’t get stops. Those two things combined hurt; that’s the key to the second half,” Scott said, referring to CU’s five first-half turnovers and 11 in the second half. Utah converted those 16 miscues into 19 points.
Thomas said the Utes “just came out real aggressive” in the second half. “We didn’t come out and match their aggressiveness. We have to do that to every opponent we face; if we do that we’ll be all right. When we’re down we have to come together on the court instead of looking at each other.”
Another second-half failure, said Boyle, was not running the offense through Scott. Boyle said the Buffs might be understanding they have to play through Scott, not meaning that the 6-10 post must score on every possession, “But we have to play inside-out. When we do we’re pretty good. But the offensive struggles bleeding over into the defensive part of the floor has got to stop. We’re just not good enough defensively, though.”
CU finished the afternoon shooting 21-of-53 (39.6 percent) while Utah shot 59.6 percent from the field (28-of-47) – including the blistering 70.8 percent (17-of-24) in the final 20 minutes.
Among CU’s biggest first-half difficulties was finishing at the rim. The Buffs missed half a dozen point-blank attempts, enabling Utah to hold a 16-10 advantage in paint points and finish with a 38-22 advantage.
Booker finished the first half with only a pair of free throws and two fouls that sent him to the bench at the 7:12 mark. Also encountering first-half foul problems were Thomas and Johnson, who finished the game with four each.
Thomas said the early fouls on him, Booker and Johnson “hurt us a lot. We got up early in the first half and those fouls hurt. But we have to play through that.”
But with the score tied at 30 at intermission, the second 20 minutes (and the win) were there for the taking – and the Utes quickly took advantage. They scored the second half’s first nine points for a 39-30 lead. CU took a timeout to regroup with 17:26 to play, but promptly turned it over and Wright converted a traditional three-point play for the nine-point lead.
Scott called the turnovers “something we’ve talked about a lot. It’s inexcusable. We have to go back to the drawing board.” He also said Wright, the Pac-12 leader in steals, “got us a couple of times and made some easy baskets. I thought that was a key.”
CU finally got its first second-half points on a left-handed Scott hook with 16:20 left. But by then the Utes were up 39-32 and about to pull away for good.
Utah pushed its advantage to 45-32 on a straightaway 3-pointer by Loveridge with 13:52 to play and extended its lead to as many as 17 twice in the final 5 minutes.
Boyle said a lack of mental toughness continues to degrade the Buffs’ effort and that a glance at “every league in America” will show the top teams as the top defensive teams – and that’s where the Buffs are falling short.
“Our mental toughness – when things don’t go well for us on offense . . . it has to get better,” he said, adding a few corrections have to be made “to get it right. We don’t have to change the makeup . . . we’re not playing consistently enough and mentally tough enough.”
CU finishes out the regular season with road games next week at Stanford (Wednesday) and California (Saturday). The Pac-12 Tournament is March 12-15 in Las Vegas.
New point-guard steers Buffs to win, barely
Feb 6th
Written By B.G. Brooks, CUBuffs.com Contributing Editor
BOULDER – The Colorado Buffaloes and junior guard Askia Booker opened the second half on the run and appeared ready to race past Washington State on Wednesday night. Not so fast, said the Cougars’ DaVonte Lacy.
The Buffs held on – far from tightly – for a 68-63 Pac-12 Conference win that was secured – but barely – at the foul line in the final 1:05. CU hit only 8 of 14 free throws during that span, but Booker’s 6 of 8 – including a pair with 2 seconds remaining – kept the Buffs afloat.
“A win’s a win,” said CU coach Tad Boyle, “especially in conference play. But it was not pretty, especially at the end. Obviously we have to finish better and that puts a bit of a damper on this win.”
With Lacy hitting 21 of his game-high and career-high 34 points in the second half – including five of his eight 3-pointers – WSU cut a 19-point CU lead to three (66-63) before Booker’s final pair of foul shots.
“We had a 19-point lead and gave it up,” said Booker, whose 26 points Wednesday night was one off his career high. “We took it down to the last second. We can’t let it get to that point. It seemed like we didn’t have enough energy towards the end and we can’t do that Sunday because that team is a lot better and will come in and finish us off.”
“That team” is Washington, which defeated CU 71-54 in Seattle last month and visits the Coors Events Center Sunday at 6 p.m.
Booker scored 15 of his total as the Buffs (17-6, 6-4) increased a three-point halftime lead to 50-33 with 8:25 to play, then to 54-35 less than 2 minutes later. But Lacy, who didn’t play in CU’s 71-70 overtime win in Spokane on Jan. 8, and the Cougars (9-13, 2-8) roared back with their shooting behind the arc.
They attempted 15 treys in the second half, hitting nine of them (60 percent) and finishing 13-of-27 for the game (48.1 percent). The Cougars’ 13 made 3-pointers tied their total in the first meeting and Elon’s output for the most by a CU opponent this season.
Boyle said the Buffs defended Que Johnson well (he made 2 of 11 field goals and finished with eight points) but faltered on Lacy. “Not so much on him,” Boyle said. “When you’re eight for 13 on threes, that’s not good enough (defense).”
CU’s Xavier Johnson backed up Booker with 20 points – they were the only two Buffs in double figures – and Johnson’s nine rebounds and Wesley Gordon’s 10 picked up the slack for a sub-par Josh Scott. CU’s leading scorer (14.4 ppg) and rebounder (9.1 rpg) didn’t get his first point or board until the game’s final half minute.
“Give Washington State credit,” said Boyle, “their game plan was double him every time he touched the ball. They did and they were on him quickly.”
The Buffs improved their home record to 14-1 this season and 58-8 at the CEC under Boyle. The 14 ‘W’s this season tie for the fourth-most home wins in program history.
The Buffs led 23-20 at halftime, but it was a weird, disjointed journey to that meager advantage.
Neither team sizzled from the field in the first 20 minutes; CU shot 39 percent, WSU 40. At one point, the Buffs went 6:32 between field goals. And at 13-13, there wasn’t a first-half rebounding edge – forever a point of contention for Boyle. CU wound up winning the board battle 32-28 and shot 48.1 percent in the second to finish at 44 percent (22-of-50). The Buffs committed what Boyle called a “manageable” 12 turnovers while turning 17 Cougars errors into 14 points.
After the Cougars took a 7-6 lead, the Buffs appeared to take control with a 9-0 run that opened their largest margin of the half – 15-7.
Jaron Hopkins opened the run with a trey from the left corner and George King closed it with a short pull-up jumper. Then the Buffs went stagnant offensively, not getting their next field goal for just over 61/2 minutes.
For the first time in five games, Hopkins didn’t start. He was replaced by Xavier Talton, but the sophomore from Sterling picked up two quick fouls and went to the bench only 2:28 into his first career start.
While CU was muddling through its offense, WSU capitalized, mainly on the shooting of Lacy. The 6-4 junior brought the Cougars back by scoring eight of his 13 first-half points in the final 5:47.
The Buffs outscored the Cougars 11-3 to open the second half, with Booker going to the rim and getting 10 of those points. CU opened its first double-digit lead of the game – 34-23 – with 16:01 remaining.
“Coach just told me to be aggressive,” Booker said. “I had to pick and choose my spots . . . I got to the basket and got some easy buckets in transition.”
Three consecutive 3-pointers by Talton, Booker and Dustin Thomas opened a 50-33 lead 8 1/2 minutes to play, but the Cougars kept shooting treys and hitting them.
“Lacy got open way too many times,” Booker said. “It came down to a three-point game and whether it be one man or three people that’s hot on their team, we have to find a way to win the game. And thank God we made those free throws at the end to hold them off.
“But at the same time you can’t let an individual come in here, especially on the road, and let him take over and keep his team in the game.”
The Buffs have until Sunday to figure out how to do that. UW’s C.J. Wilcox scored 31 on the Buffs, hitting seven treys, in the meeting in Seattle.