Buffs Host Huskies In Key Pac-12 Encounter
January 19, 2018 | Men's Basketball, Neill Woelk
BOULDER — Minutes after Colorado's 82-73 win over Washington State on Thursday, CU coach Tad Boyle made no bones about the significance of Saturday's 4 p.m. game with Washington at the Coors Events Center.
"Saturday is the biggest game of the year for us, no doubt about it," Boyle said. "Tonight was a very important win for our team to keep that momentum going. Now it becomes a separation game between the Huskies and Buffs on Saturday."
Indeed, a quick glance at the Pac-12 standings finds the 12-7 Buffs (4-3 Pac-12) in what Boyle called the "muck" — five teams in the middle of the pack all within one game of each other. Currently tied with UCLA for fourth place, the Buffs could guarantee themselves of at least staying in that spot, or possibly moving up, with a win against the 13-6 Huskies. Washington is also in that muck with a 3-3 conference mark, just a half-game behind CU.
"You look at any league in the country, you have a couple teams that are 5-1 up top, maybe even 4-2, then some 3-3 teams, 2-4 teams and 4-3 teams," Boyle said. ""There's that top, there's what I call the muck in the middle and then you have the bottom feeders in every conference. You don't want to be in that bottom-feeder group, but right now we're in the muck. The only way you separate yourself is to win at home and figure out how to win some road games. Not that you're going to win every road game but you have to win some."
This will be the Buffs' initial look at the Huskies under first-year coach Mike Hopkins, who took over after UW fired Lorenzo Romar after last season. The long-time Syracuse assistant — once the head coach-in-waiting under Jim Boeheim — brought with him to Seattle Boeheim's 2-3 zone defense. The change appears to have invigorated the Huskies, as the team picked in the preseason media poll to finish 10th in the league already has some quality wins — including road wins at Kansas and USC.
"It's never easy to lose your head coach, it's never easy to see the guy that recruited you move on, so I give the young men in that program a lot of credit and I give Mike Hopkins a lot of credit for coming and re-energizing things," Boyle said. "They're the surprise of our league, along with Arizona State. When Washington went into Kansas and beat Kansas, that opened a lot of people's eyes. They've had some good wins."
The Huskies' defense has been a difference this year. Led by junior guard Matisse Thybulle, who leads the Pac-12 and is fourth in the nation in steals with 3.11 per game, UW is second in the conference in league games in steals, averaging 8.2 per game. Washington also leads the league in blocked shots, averaging 4.8 per game.
"They're active and they play with energy and they shoot passing lanes and gaps," Boyle said. "We have to be really strong with the ball, we have to be really smart with the ball, we have to use our shot fakes well, we have to use pass fakes well and we have to know where Thybulle is at all times. They have four guys with over 7-foot wingspan on that team. They have a lot of length. Length is one thing but when length is active, it's a whole different animal."
The Buffs, who have won four of their last five, have done a much better job of taking care of the ball in that stretch. Aside from a 22-turnover game at USC, they have averaged just 12.7 turnovers per game in their four wins, including only 10 in Thursday's win over Washington State.
The Buffs are at least familiar with the 2-3 zone the Huskies use almost exclusively. It's the same defense Colorado began employing five games ago against Arizona State.
"We're not as good at it as they are because they do it every single day, but it's a lot of the same concepts we want to do in our two zone," Boyle said. "The same things that hurt our two zone are going to hurt their two zone but we have to make sure we execute offensively."
They key, Boyle said, will be getting out in transition. To do that, the Buffs have to get defensive stops and some steals of their own.
"Their zone is very good when it gets set," Boyle said. "The best way to beat that, counteract that, is to get stops and run and try to get things in transition. Once it's in the halfcourt and their zone gets set, we have to be really smart, we have to be patient but aggressive. I would like to have 30 fastbreak points. That means we're getting stops, steals and we're getting out and running."
KING AMONG LEAGUE LEADERS: CU senior George King is enjoying an outstanding stretch recently, and his numbers are proof.
In conference play, King is 17th in the league in scoring (14.3 points per game), third in rebounding (8.6 rpg), fourth in 3-pointers made (3.1 per game), 10th in 3-point percentage (.440) and 10th in blocked shots (1.1 bpg).
"George King has finally realized it's all about winning," Boyle said. How many points I score, how many rebounds I get, OK that's secondary to did we win or not. When your seniors start feeling like that, thinking like, you have a chance."
CRISP MEMORY: Boyle said freshman point guard McKinley Wright IV will be matched against UW guard David Crisp when the Buffs switch to man-to-man defense.
It was Crisp who sank the Buffs in overtime in Seattle last year, hitting a 3-pointer and two free throws in the final minute of an 85-83 Huskies win.
SERIES: The Huskies hold a slim 12-11 all-time edge in the series, with the two teams having split their home-and-home series each of the last four seasons (the home team won each game in three of those seasons, with the visiting team winning both times in 2015). The series is tied 5-5 since CU joined the Pac-12 in 2011-12, with the Buffs holding a 7-3 all-time edge in Boulder.
BROADCAST: The Pac-12 Network will televise the game with JB Long and Mike Montgomery. KOA 850 AM radio will carry the game with Mark Johnson and Scott Wilke.
PATCHES FOR JULIA: Colorado players will once again wear patches on their uniform in memory of CU lacrosse player Julia Sarcona, who died last week in a car crash just outside of Boulder.
Contact: Neill.Woelk@Colorado.edu
