Posts tagged Xavier Johnson
CU Men Beat California-Berkeley Bears, Reach .500 In Pac-12
Jan 27th
By B.G. Brooks, CUBuffs.com Contributing Editor
BOULDER – It was a steep climb out and the trail only gets steeper, but the Colorado Buffaloes finally surfaced on Sunday at the Coors Events Center. Opening with another stellar defensive performance then staying above ground with a season-best effort from the free throw line, CU beat California 81-71 to even its Pac-12 Conference record at 4-4.
The Buffs began conference play 1-4, and in that nowhere-to-go-but-up context, reaching .500 “is really a positive sign,” said CU coach Tad Boyle. “But when we were 1-4, we wanted to get to 2-4 . . . we worried about the next game. But we’re not happy being 4-4; we have to win the next game and keep scratching and clawing and move our way up.”
Did we mention the trail only gets steeper?
Three consecutive road games await, beginning Saturday at Utah, followed by trips to first-place Oregon (Thursday, Feb. 7) and struggling Oregon State (Sunday, Feb. 10). The Buffs don’t return to the CEC until Feb. 14, when Arizona visits.
But with January waning, CU appears to be shaping up, even though at times Sunday it was hard to tell. Said Boyle: “The game was one of those deals where our shooting (59.6 percent) overcame a lot of other ills and some deficiencies we know we have to get better at.”
Topping his list were the 20 CU turnovers that led to 22 Cal points. There also were the Bears’ 53 second-half points – 33 of them attributable to guards Allen Crabbe and Justin Cobbs, who finally got untracked after nearly silent first halves and helped whittle an 18-point Buffs lead to eight in the final minute.
“We let them get closer than we should have,” Boyle said.
But in the final 60 seconds, Spencer Dinwiddie hit eight consecutive free throws to keep the Buffs afloat. For the afternoon, he hit 9-of-10, leading CU to its best foul-shooting performance of the season – 18-of-22 (81.8 percent).
Finishing with 16 points, Dinwiddie was one of four CU players in double figures. Askia Booker scored 20, Xavier Johnson added 18 and Andre Roberson 15. Johnson, a 6-6 freshman, also collected 12 rebounds for his first career double.
Roberson played only 2 first-half minutes due to foul problems and was limited to five rebounds after his 20-board performance against Stanford on Thursday. He led the nation in rebounding (11.9) entering the game.
But despite his first-half foul problems and those of Josh Scott, who missed the half’s last 7:53 after picking up his second foul, the Buffs prospered before intermission. That was mainly due to Johnson, who stepped up Roberson’s absence and got 10 of his points and eight of his rebounds before Askia Booker
the break.
“You could make a legitimate argument that he was the game’s offensive MVP,” Boyle said. “He was terrific . . . he’s really grown up.”
When Roberson went to the bench, Johnson said he “felt like I needed to help in rebounding . . . Andre is a big part (of that).”
Cal (11-8, 3-4) was led by Cobbs with 22 points – 16 in the second half, and Crabbe added 21 – 17 of those in the second half. But in combining for their 43 points, they needed almost that many shots between them – and Boyle said he could live with that: “They made some tough shots . . . if they’re going to get 43 points you want them to take 41 shots to get them.”
CU’s lock-down defense in the first half – Cal was limited to 20.6 percent from the field – and the Buffs’ overall strong board work – a 35-30 rebound advantage – created enough of a cushion before Cobbs and Crabbe began finding their groove in the final 20 minutes.
The Buffs led 34-18 at halftime and shot 50 percent from the field (13-for-26). But that percentage at times belied their offensive efficiency. After taking a nine-point lead (14-5) on consecutive treys by Booker, CU went nearly 7 minutes without scoring again.
That drought wasn’t fatal, though, because the Buffs defense nearly had the Bears clamped shut. Cal’s 18 first-half points were its lowest this season. But with Crabbe and Cobbs heating up, the Bears finished the game at 41.7 percent from the field – slightly above Boyle’s defensive goal.
“I thought we got tired,” he said. “’XJ’ was exhausted; he’s not used to playing 18 minutes in the first half. But they were tired, too . . . then when Cobbs and Crabbe started making shots, it’s amazing how that energizes you.”
Xavier Johnson
Booker (13) and Johnson (10) were CU’s only two players in double figures in the first half, while Cal had no one totaling more than six points. Crabbe (19.6 ppg) and Cobbs (14.3 ppg) were held to four and six points, respectively.
Roberson and Scott were back in the Buffs lineup to open the second half, but their return didn’t prevent the Bears from a 7-0 start to pull Cal to 34-25 in the first 1:34. Crabbe scored five of those seven points, prompting a timeout from Boyle.
On that possession, the Buffs got a layup from Johnson, then one of two free throws by Roberson to restore their double-digit lead (37-27). Three minutes later, Booker’s fourth trey of the game pushed CU ahead by 14 (46-32), and if Cal felt this one slipping away, that feeling was justified.
By the 9:05 mark, the Buffs had gone up 58-40 – matching their big lead of the afternoon – on a layup by Johnson. But with Crabbe hitting back-to-back treys, the Bears crept to within 65-54 with 4:06 to play.
Then it was Cobbs’ turn. Scoring nine consecutive points, he pulled the Bears to within nine (73-64) in the final 1:05. A trey by Tyrone Wallace got them to 75-67, but Dinwiddie was perfect on eight free throw attempts in the last minute to keep the Buffs safe.
Cal’s hot second-half shooting (60.5 percent) and closing to within eight points late, said Dinwiddie, were the result of “mental lapses. As much as you preach playing the possession, I think all of us as a team look at the scoreboard and say, ‘Look, we’re up 12, then we hit a three and we’re up 15.’
“When that starts to roll downhill a little bit and you’re only up eight, then you have to tighten the screws a little bit. Sometimes you can’t.”
Nonetheless, the win put CU in fifth place in the Pac-12, trailing Washington (4-3), the two Arizona schools (5-2), UCLA (6-2) and Oregon (7-0). Dinwiddie called the win “very important. To say you don’t look at the standings would be a lie. You don’t focus on them, but you look at them.
“We knew that people on top of us were playing each other . . . these (Stanford and Cal) are two very big wins. We’re going to look to go to Utah and just continue to win the next game.”
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CU Men Grind Out Road Win Against Cougars
Jan 20th
By B.G. Brooks, CUBuffs.com Contributing Editor
PULLMAN, Wash. – On a night when the Colorado Buffaloes’ offense came and went, their constant was defense – and it carried them to their second Pac-12 Conference victory and first of the season on the road.
CU kept grinding and grinding and finally put away Washington State 58-49 Saturday night at Beasley Coliseum. The Buffs went to 12-6 overall and 2-4 in the Pac-12, while the Cougars dropped to 10-8, 1-4.
Buffs coach Tad Boyle told his team that the “hungrier, tougher team” would win Saturday night – and his team proved to be both. CU survived a cold-shooting final 6:15 of the first half and fell behind by four points early in the second half.
But the Buffs rallied behind their defense and late offense provided by Spencer Dinwiddie, whose three-pointer in the game’s last 6 minutes helped keep the Cougars at bay. That shot restored a five-point lead, and he followed with a pair of free throws at the 4:37 mark for another five-point margin.
“That was an ugly win, we have got to get better offensively. We only put up 44 shots to their 58 and we had some silly turnovers, but again, you take a win on the road,” said CU head coach Tad Boyle on 850 KOA. “I thought that there were a couple key performances tonight; number one: Andre [Roberson] was terrific on [Washington State’s Brock] Motum tonight as he made him work for everything. He is the difference in the game defensively, people are going to look at his stat line and maybe say ‘Oh Andre had an off night’ but he didn’t have an off night on defense. They were obviously boxing him out, they were face guarding him and being physical with him, but he was driven.”
“Number two: Xavier Johnson, really gave us great minutes tonight and got inside and he is a beast down there. And then ‘Ski [Booker] made some shots when he had to make shots. He’s 3-for-11 so his efficiency is not very good but two of his three that he made were big shots in the second half and then he had a great assist to Xavier [Johnson] and that is where we kind of blew it open.”
Dinwiddie led CU with 16 points, with Xavier Johnson contributing 14 and Josh Scott 11. WSU got 13 each from Brock Motum and Mike Ladd.
The Buffs held the Cougars to 34.5 percent from the field – their second straight game of keeping an opponent below 40 percent. CU shot 43.2 percent, including 47.8 in the second half. Freshman Xavier Johnson was effective inside
CU comes home next week to play Stanford (Thursday, 8 p.m.) and California (Sunday, 1:30 p.m.) before traveling to Utah the following Saturday to open February.
The Buffs led 23-19 at halftime, but it took a buzzer-beating three-pointer by Will DiOrio to get the Cougars that close. After a 9-9 tie, CU went ahead by as many as seven point on four occasions during the half’s final 6:15.
Among Boyle’s Saturday night goal for the Buffs was to be more selective in their shot selection and move the ball like they’ve shown they’re capable of in practice. CU was hit-and-miss in both areas, with the offense bogging down at times and the Buffs playing their second consecutive game without a three-pointer in the opening 20 minutes.
In fact, CU finished the half’s final 6:15 without a field goal, getting four of four free throws from Scott and one of two from Xavier Johnson to maintain their seven-point lead until DiOrio’s late trey.
But if the Buffs’ offensive struggles continued, they also continued to play the same brand of rugged defense shown three nights early at Washington. WSU’s 29.6 field goal percentage (8-for-27) was the lowest by a CU opponent this season at halftime, as were the Buffs’ and Cougars’ combined 42 first-half points.
CU’s plan was to go inside to the 6-10 Scott, and it worked in the opening half. For the fifth time in his freshman year, he went to the locker room as the Buffs’ scoring leader, getting nine points on two of five field goals and five of six free throws.
The Cougars outscored the Buffs 7-2 in the second half’s first 31/2 minutes and regained the lead (26-25) for the first time since 9-7. CU took it back (27-26) on a pair of Eli Stalzer free throws but WSU five consecutive points from Royce Woolridge to take its largest advantage (31-27) to that point.
The Buffs desperately needed a field goal – and Johnson provided a pair to pull them within one point (32-31). A fast-break layup by Spencer Dinwiddie pushed CU back ahead by one, setting up what appeared would be a back-and-forth final 10 minutes.
It was – for maybe a minute and a half.
Askia Booker, who had two first-half points on one-for-five shooting, hit a jumper to pull the Buffs into a 37-37 tie, Dinwiddie followed with a traditional three-point play, then Booker buried another jumper for a 42-37 CU advantage.
WSU had 7:21 to make up the five-point deficit, but could get no closer than three in the final 5 minutes. CU increased its lead to 11 (58-47) on two free throws by Roberson Booker with 28.3 seconds to play – and the Buffs finally could feel safe about a rare road win.
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Huskies Put The Bite On Frigid Buffs
Jan 17th
By B.G. Brooks, CUBuffs.com Contributing Editor
SEATTLE – The Colorado Buffaloes dug themselves a hole with frigid shooting here Wednesday night and left Alaska Airlines Arena in a deeper Pac-12 Conference hole.
But despite their 64-54 loss to streaking Washington, which won for the tenth time in 12 games, Buffs coach Tad Boyle and his players believe positive steps were taken – particularly on defense. Boyle said his team’s defense “was good enough to win . . . our guys played great (defense). We played with pride and some toughness. We lost to a good basketball team.”
The Huskies, playing their first home game since Dec. 22, remained unbeaten (4-0) in conference play and went to 12-5 overall while the Buffs slipped to 1-4, 11-6. If CU’s ‘D’ was exemplary, its ‘O’ was of the OMG variety. Credit the Huskies for some of that misfiring; they’ve now held four Pac-12 teams to under 40 percent from the field.
The Buffs shot a season-low 29.2 percent in the first half and finished at 36.2 percent (21-for-58) for the game – the team’s second-lowest mark this season. CU also tied a season low in assists with six and made only one of 10 three-point attempts. But the Buffs held the Huskies to 33.9 percent (20-for-59) from the field and outrebounded them by one (38-37). It wasn’t an aesthetically pleasing game for either team, but UW coach Lorenzo Romar didn’t care.
Asked about “winning ugly,” Romar said, “You can color it any want to color it. I just know that when you go out and you play two games in a row and you have single digit turnovers (UW had 9, CU 12), you hold four teams to under 40 percent from the field, you outrebound three out of the four, you’re beginning to do things right. The only ‘ugly’ thing, if you want to call it that, is that we haven’t been making shots. Two out of the last four games we haven’t made shots. Other than that, I think we’re doing everything else OK.”
Boyle said the Huskies’ 15 offensive rebounds “really killed us in the second half. We had some stops and couldn’t finish the possession with getting the rebound. That hurt us. And then we put them on the foul line in the second half. For some reason we don’t get to the foul line on the road; I don’t know why.”
Sophomore Spencer Dinwiddie, who led CU with 15 points, said the Buffs played with more overall intensity than in previous conference losses to Arizona, Arizona State and UCLA.
“For sure,” Dinwiddie said. “That’s one thing we talked about. We talked our positives; we finally started playing with our principles – we rebounded the ball decently. There were a couple of possessions where they got three or four offensive rebounds. If we cut that out and they don’t make a run, the game’s different.”
The only other CU player in double figures was junior Andre Roberson with 10 points, marking the first time this season only two Buffs reached double digits. Roberson also had 11 rebounds for his seventh double-double of the season and the 32nd of his career.
Roberson said the Buffs “stepped it up big time on the defensive end . . . we just didn’t get the rebounds when it mattered and we didn’t make the tough stops. Our offense has to get better; our motion is terrible right now. That’s one thing we have to improve on big time. Just executing on the offense end is a main thing. That’s why we struggled with this team.”
Sophomore guard Askia Booker fouled out with 34.4 seconds to play after scoring nine points, while freshman forwards Xavier Johnson and Josh Scott had nine and eight, respectively. Scott got all of his points in the second half.
The Huskies’ C.J. Wilcox, the conference’s leading scorer (21.3 ppg), finished with 25, while teammate Scott Suggs added 13. UW had no other double-figure scorers, but Desmond Simmons (12) and Aziz N’Diaye (11) accounted for 23 rebounds.
CU scored a season-low 20 points in the first half and trailed by eight at intermission. The Huskies opened 10-point leads three times in the game’s final 8 minutes, an 11-point advantage in the last 3 minutes, and never allowed their visitors closer than seven points during that span. Trailing 28-20 at intermission, the Buffs might have gone to their locker room thankful for that deficit. When they caught the Huskies at 17-17 on a layup by Johnson – he started against in place of Sabatino Chen – they appeared to have corrected their early problems.
CU committed four of its seven first-half turnovers – a high for a half in league play – in the game’s first 6 minutes and fell behind by seven points. Then the Buffs strung together an 8-2 run – their most productive offensive stretch of the opening half – and pulled even.
But things went south from there. After Johnson’s layup produced the tie at 17 with 8:56 left before the break, CU scored only three more points to finish with its lowest first-half total of the season.
The Buffs opened the second half with three points from Roberson and pulled to within 28-23. But the Huskies trumped that with a four-point play from Scott Suggs to take their largest lead of the night – 32-23 – to that point. The nine-point advantage became 10 (37-27) on a trey by Wilcox. But taking advantage of the 7-foot N’Diaye taking a rest, the 6-10 Scott hit back-to-back baskets to draw the Buffs to within five (39-34) with just over 11 minutes to play.
CU’s threat ended there. A 5-0 run restored U-Dub’s 10-point lead (48-38), leaving the Buffs just over 7 minutes to retaliate. Boyle called a timeout at the 7:12 mark, but the closest his team could get was 52-45 on a three-point play by Dinwiddie with 3:52 to play.
“With our defense tonight and our pride, I’m proud of our guys for the way they hung in there,” Boyle said. “It got away from us at the end there and you look at a 10-point loss on the road and we couldn’t shrink the lead because we couldn’t score. But it wasn’t because of our defense.”
The Buffs’ road trip continues with a Saturday game (8 p.m. MST) at Washington State. The team will fly via charter on Thursday morning from Seattle to Spokane, have Thursday and Friday practices at Gonzaga, then fly to Pullman on Saturday morning.
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