Posts tagged Xavier Johnson
Buffs’ Rally Comes Up Short Against Bruins
Jan 13th
By B.G. Brooks, CUBuffs.com Contributing Editor
BOULDER – Protecting a second-half lead wasn’t a problem on Saturday for the Colorado Buffaloes. Their dilemma this time was overcoming a 13-point second-half deficit – and they nearly did it.
Deep and talented UCLA led by a point at halftime, revved it up in the second half, then had to desperately hold on to beat CU 78-75 and deal the Buffs their first loss of the season at the Coors Events Center.
CU closed to within a point (76-75) on Spencer Dinwiddie’s layup, but UCLA’s Jordan Adams sank a pair of free throws with 7.9 seconds to play to give the Bruins their final lead. A three-point attempt from the left corner by Askia Booker bounced off the rim at the buzzer.
CU coach Tad Boyle said his team got the shot it wanted: “We drew that play up and got ‘Ski’ a wide-open three in the corner . . . we got the shots we wanted offensively, we really did what we set out to do in the last two or three minutes. But we didn’t get a stop when we needed to.”
When Booker’s shot didn’t go in, it left the Buffs 8-1 this season at the CEC and 39-5 at home in 21/2 seasons under Boyle. CU fell to 11-5 overall and 1-3 in the Pac-12 Conference while UCLA, winning its ninth straight game, improved to 14-3 and stayed unbeaten (4-0) in conference play.
Dinwiddie led CU with 23 points – 15 in the second half – while Booker and Josh Scott added 18 each. Scott also had nine rebounds. UCLA’s Travis Wear matched Dinwiddie’s point total and stepped up with clutch baskets when the Buffs were making their comeback. Adams added 18 points, with Shabazz Muhammad contributing 14 and Kyle Anderson 12 for UCLA.
Boyle called the loss “very disappointing, frustrating for our team and program . . . the margin for error is so thin in those games (and) our team is not where we need to be. It’s frustrating when you know opportunities are there and we don’t take advantage.”
But the Bruins played a large part in Saturday’s loss, and Boyle credited them for “making plays and free throws down the stretch.” Specifically, they hit eight of 11 in the final 61 seconds. And a pair of clutch field goals by Travis Wear also helped keep the Buffs at bay.
“He was terrific down the stretch,” Boyle said of the 6-10 Wear, who was 11-of-17 from the field. Added Dinwiddie: “(Wear) was the best player on the floor. He shot over 50 percent . . . give him a lot of credit. Some of our guys are not used to guarding a big guy outside like that.”
The Buffs, said Boyle, “played hard and competed, but we have to be more consistent from start to finish against good teams.” He drew on a quote from his former college coach at Kansas, Larry Brown: “Coming back is easy; coming back and winning is hard.”
For matchup purposes with the bigger Bruins, Boyle started freshman forward Xavier Johnson in place of senior Sabatino Chen for the second time this season. The 6-6 Johnson finished with eight points – seven in the first half – in 22 minutes.
The Buffs led by as many four points in the first half, but trailed by one (35-34) at intermission. It was only the second time this season that CU has trailed at halftime – the first being in early December at Kansas. And that trip didn’t turn out so well for the Buffs.
The Bruins’ biggest first-half lead was three on three occasions, with those meager advantages telling the story of an opening 20 minutes played at a controlled pace by both teams. When running was to be done, it was usually UCLA doing it; the Bruins had 10 fast break points to the Buffs’ four.
Neither team had a player in double figures in the opening half, and CU’s Andre Roberson didn’t get his first field goal until nearly 15 minutes in. He finished the half with four points and got one more in the second half. But he collected a game-high 12 rebounds.
CU fell well short of holding UCLA to 40 percent from the field. The Bruins hit 31 of their 60 field goal attempts (51.7 percent) while the Buffs finished at 25-for-57 (43.9 percent). CU won the board battle 34-32 and was better at the free throw line, hitting 20-of-27 – an upgrade from their 14-of-26 in the previous win against USC.
“But if we make three more, it might be a tie game,” Booker said. “We have to get better there.”
Booker said his futile trey at the buzzer “felt good” when it left his hand. After releasing the shot, he wound up flat on his back. Did he think he was fouled? “It doesn’t matter now, the game’s over,” he said.
UCLA scored the second half’s first five points on a layup by Travis Wear and a three-pointer by Muhammad, opening a six-point (40-34) lead and prompting a timeout by Boyle with 18:39 to play.
The Buffs had an answer – two of them. Treys by Booker and Dinwiddie tied the score at 42-42 with 16:09 remaining. But over the next 3 minutes, the Bruins outscored the Buffs 8-1 to go up by 50-43 – UCLA’s largest lead to that point.
It grew to 13 (58-45) just over 3 minutes later as the Buffs were held without a field goal during that nearly 6-minute span, getting only a pair of free throws from Dinwiddie. Meanwhile, Jordan capped the Bruins’ 14-3 run with a four-point play to make it 58-45 with 9:49 left.
CU got as close as 61-55 on a pair of free throws by Scott with 5:25 remaining, then crept to within five on two occasions in the final 2:15 on baskets by Dinwiddie and Scott. And possession by possession, the Buffs kept coming, giving themselves the chance to tie on Booker’s near-miss at the buzzer.
“’Ski’ is one of our best clutch shooters,” said Dinwiddie. “We’re not at all disappointed in getting that shot.”
Added Booker: “We shouldn’t have let it get to that point . . . I’m happy with way fought, that gave us a chance to tie and go to overtime.”
In its three previous Pac-12 games, CU squandered double-digit leads and lost two of the three games. On Saturday, Dinwiddie said he didn’t believe the Buffs lacked a sense of urgency, “We just hit these lulls on the offensive and defensive ends. Even if it happens on the offensive end, we can’t let it happen on the defensive end . . . we have to stay on pace and execute our plan.”
Doing it only becomes tougher. If the Buffs are to climb to .500 in the Pac-12, they must do it on the road. They travel to Washington (Thursday, 9:30 p.m. MST) and Washington State (Saturday, 8 p.m. MST) next week.
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CU Men Outlast Trojans – With Much Difficulty
Jan 11th
By B.G. Brooks, CUBuffs.com Contributing Editor
BOULDER – The Colorado Buffaloes’ road woes of a week ago disappeared Thursday night in the Coors Events Center against Southern California . . . sort of.
Once again, CU lost a large lead – but this time held on to a game. The Buffs outlasted the Trojans 66-60 for their first Pac-12 Conference win of the season and set up a get-to-.500 date with UCLA on Saturday.
“Hopefully our guys understand we have to play for 40 minutes,” CU coach Tad Boyle said. “We have to do it Saturday or UCLA will come in here and beat us . . . this is not rocket science.”
Improving to 8-0 at home this season and 39-4 at the CEC under Boyle, the Buffs (11-4, 1-2) used a 23-5 run in the first half to overtake the Trojans (6-10, 1-2) and avoid their first 0-3 conference start since the 2008-09 season.
CU encountered the same problem with prosperity it had last week in conference-opening road losses at No. 3 Arizona and Arizona State. The Buffs were outscored 20-9 over the game’s final 8 minutes, helping them squander a 17-point second-half lead. Plus, they hit only 14 of 26 free throws and were outrebounded 39-30.
But the Trojans provided an assist in the turnover department, committing a season-high 23 that the Buffs converted into 21 points. A chest injury slowed Trojans point guard Jio Fontan; he got 16 first-half minutes (no points, three assists, three turnovers) but didn’t play in the second half. CU had 16 fast break points and outscored USC 34-20 in the paint.
“In league play, you figure out a way to win when you don’t play your best basketball,” Boyle said. “The first half I was pleased; our second half wasn’t very good . . . thank God for Sabatino Chen and Josh Scott; those two kids really picked us up when we needed it.”
Scott, the 6-10 freshman, led the Buffs with 14 points on six-of-seven shooting from the field. Chen, a senior on a mission, had 10 points and four steals. Each of his five field goals were of the pick-the-Buffs-up variety.
CU sophomore Askia Booker added 12 points and junior Andre Roberson had 11. Boyle didn’t start Roberson for the first time this season, keeping him out for 41/2 minutes as a penalty for the player being late to a team function.
“He overslept . . . it’s not a big deal,” said Boyle, who started freshman Xavier Johnson in Roberson’s place.
Eric Wise led USC with 16 points, while J.T. Terrell added 11 – all in the second half – and Byron Wesley and DeWayne Dedmon added 10 each. The 7-foot Dedmon also collected a game-best nine rebounds.
Roberson entered the game with 15:30 left in the first half and CU up 8-6. That’s the way the game’s first 8 minutes went, with six lead changes and five ties – and USC made the initial attempt to pull away.
The Trojans, who had beaten Stanford and lost to California in league play, might have felt good after a 7-0 run that opened their largest lead of the first half – 17-10 – with 12:01 left before halftime.
But it paled alongside what was coming from the Buffs. After a three-pointer by Eli Stalzer from the right corner turned them on, they stayed hyperactive for the rest of the half and were up by 15 (41-26) by intermission.
Over the half’s final 12 minutes, CU outscored USC 31-9, limiting the Trojans to four field goals during that span. The Buffs’ take-control run – 23-5 – occurred immediately following a banked-in jumper by Dedmon that gave the Trojans their seven-point advantage.
During that surge, Scott collected seven of his team-high 11 first-half points. All 10 players used by Boyle in the first 20 minutes scored. “Our bench was good – and that’s a positive sign,” he said. “But we have to get better.”
But as dominant as the Buffs appeared over the first half’s final 12 minutes, that dominance disappeared in the opening 5 minutes of the second half and again in the final 8 minutes. The Trojans outscored them 10-2 to open the final 20 minutes and cut their 15-point deficit to seven (43-36).
If CU had established any bad traits on its two-game Arizona swing, the most apparent was letting leads wither. It was something the Events Center crowd (10,344) had no taste for – and neither did Boyle.
Chen surmised the Buffs might be losing leads because they get “too comfortable and relaxed” when their opponents fall behind and “get in desperation mode . . . it’s hard to say.”
But Boyle wasn’t buying the comfortable angle: “I’m not comfortable on the bench (and) until our guys play for 40 minutes we’re not going to beat good teams . . . why (his players) would feel comfortable, I don’t know.”
After a sheer hustle play by Chen – he made a diving steal, got to his feet, retrieved the ball and drove for a layup for CU’s first second half points – the Buffs temporarily righted themselves.
Over the next 71/2 minutes, the Buffs held the Trojans to a pair of free throws and outscored them 14-2 to take a 17-point (57-40) lead – their largest of the night to that point – with 7:55 remaining.
But as they did in the desert – losing leads of 17 and 13 points respectively at Arizona and Arizona State – the Buffs had great difficulty staying in control.
The Trojans pulled to within 63-55 with 1:31 to play, then 64-57 with 38 seconds left. After Booker converted a layup (66-57), Byron Wesley answered with a three-pointer. It was 66-60 . . . and fortunately for the Buffs, time ran out on the Trojans.
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“We’ll learn from this like we learn from every game we play,” Boyle said. “These young guys have got to grow up quick before Saturday at noon.”
Buffs Fall To Wildcats In OT After Controversial Call
Jan 4th
The Buffs believed they had won when senior Sabatino Chen banked in a three-pointer at the final buzzer in regulation of their Pac-12 Conference opener. But after conferring with the timekeepers and watching the replay monitor at McKale Arena, officials disallowed Chen’s shot and the game went into OT.
Shown a replay of Chen’s trey before his postgame interview with KOA Radio, CU coach Tad Boyle said, “That just makes me sick to my stomach . . . I’m sick to my stomach because I think our team deserved to win that game. But we didn’t and we have to move on from it.”
Boyle said he was proud of his team and that it “had that game won in a lot of ways.” He also promised the Buffs would move on, but they also would remember: “We’re not going to move on as, ‘Oh, were going to forget about it and move on.’ We’re going to remember this because you have to remember this feeling. If it doesn’t hurt in the pit of your stomach and you’re not a little bit pissed off then something is wrong with you.”
In the overtime, it was all Wildcats, who trailed by as many as 17 points in the first half and 16 in the second. Less than a minute into overtime, they took their first lead since 5-4 on a three-point play by Kevin Parrom to make it 83-82.
The Buffs tied it at 83-83 on one of two free throws by Xavier Johnson, who made his first career start in place of Chen. But CU didn’t score again. Arizona – beaten twice by CU last season, the final time for the Pac-12 tournament title – got nine more points and rolled to its first 13-0 start since 1931-32.
The Buffs (10-3, 0-1) play at Arizona State on Sunday at 6 p.m.
Five CU players scored in double figures, topped by Askia Booker’s 18. Freshman Josh Scott and Chen scored 15 each – a career-high for Chen – while Johnson had 13 and Spencer Dinwiddie 11.
Arizona’s Mark Lyons, who sent the game into overtime with a pair of free throws with 9.2 seconds left in regulation, led all scorers with 24 points. He made all 10 of his free throw attempts, while CU hit 17-of-29. In the final 1:44 of regulation, holding a seven-point lead, the Buffs made only three of eight free throw attempts.
“You have to look at the free throws,” Boyle said. “We shot 58 percent for the game; we got away with that earlier in the year at times but tonight we didn’t get away with it, it cost us the game. And I’m not talking any one guy, I’m talking about as a team. So, you’ve got to look at what you can do better, and that is what we can do.”
CU committed only 11 turnovers, but four of them came in the final 2 minutes when Arizona was catching up. Counting the 5 extra minutes, the Wildcats outscored the Buffs 22-5 in the final 6:44. Boyle said he thought his team “got a little soft defensively at the end. Second half they shot 60 percent from the field and we’re one stop away from that game, we’re one or two free throws away from that game . . .
“I asked our guys to play hard, play smart, and to play together. I thought we played hard, I thought we played together, I thought at times we didn’t play smart and those are the things we have to learn as a young team on the road in an environment like this.”
The Buffs, who led by 10 points with 1:53 remaining in regulation, played the extra period minus Andre Roberson. He fouled out in the final 2 minutes of regulation with nine points and 11 rebounds.
For the first time since the opening game, Boyle changed his starting lineup, inserting the 6-6 freshmen Johnson in the place of the 6-4 senior Chen. And Boyle’s move paid immediate dividends as the Buffs started fast by slowing it down. CU controlled the pace and led by as many as 17 points (30-13) with 4:30 remaining in the first half.
CU pulled away with a 15-1 run, and “XJ” was instrumental in that spurt. After opening the scoring with a layup, he finished the half with 12 points, including a pair of the Buffs’ six three-pointers that tied their season high. They finished 10-of-21 from beyond the arc.
But CU was certain that Arizona would snap to life, and it happened in the half’s final 4:30. After their long drought (three field goals) in the opening 15 minutes, the Wildcats closed the half on a 14-4 run and trailed by only 7 (34-27) at intermission.
Helping Johnson with CU’s first-half scoring load was Booker, who contributed three of the Buffs’ treys and finished the half with 11 points. But a Booker miscue in the final 25 seconds also helped the Wildcats boost their momentum heading into their locker room. At the 3.5 second mark, a Booker turnover and subsequent foul sent Nick Johnson to the foul line.
He hit both free throws with 2.2 seconds showing, cutting the Buffs’ lead to 34-27 and finally awakening the McHale Center crowd. But Arizona’s total tied for its lowest of the season, and it matched its field goal total with seven turnovers.
The Buffs opened the second half with the same intensity as they did the first, outscoring the Wildcats 7-0 on two free throws by Scott, a three-pointer by Roberson from the right corner on an assist by Booker and a Roberson throw-down in transition on a sweet lob by Dinwiddie.
CU was up again by 14 (43-29), but the Buffs knew they couldn’t rest on that margin. And other factors came into play: About 51/2 minutes in, both teams had to sit a star each. Roberson went to his bench with three fouls and Solomon Hill to his with four fouls.
After Arizona pulled to within 10 (45-35), Chen replaced Roberson and promptly contributed a conventional three-point play, then hit a trey from the left corner as the Buffs went back ahead by 16 (56-40).
The Buffs were expecting a Wildcats run, but they withstood this one. Just shy of the 10-minute mark, Chen delivered another trey to push CU up 59-49, and the Buffs held that 10-point margin until Lyons hit a layup and Hill followed with a three-pointer.
Suddenly, Arizona was within six (64-58) with just over 6 minutes left.
No sweat for Chen. He hit consecutive layups – the second on a goal-tending call – to restore a double-digit CU lead (68-58) with 41/2 to play. The Buffs kept that 10-point advantage (73-63) on a trey by Booker from the left wing with 2:47 left.
Booker hit two free throws at the 1:53 mark for another 10-point CU lead (75-65), but a traditional three-point play by Lyons pulled the Wildcats to within 75-68 with 1:49 remaining.
With 1:33 left, Arizona trimmed CU’s lead to 78-73 on a three-pointer by Hill, then to 78-74 on one of two free throws by Johnson as Roberson committed a turnover and fouled out. The Wildcats caught the Buffs at 80-80 on Lyons’ pair of free throws, setting up Chen’s nullified three-pointer at the buzzer.
And if the replay monitor wasn’t kind to the Buffs, neither was overtime.
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