Colorado University Athletics
Colorado
15-16
Texas Tech
17-14
Red Raiders Bury Buffs In Big 12 Rematch
March 10, 2010 | Men's Basketball, B.G. Brooks
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - A basketball season in which the University of Colorado men's team made significant strides ended on Wednesday with a stumble.
Texas Tech, victimized four days earlier in Boulder, regrouped to oust CU from the Big 12 Conference tournament with an 82-67 victory at the Sprint Center.
CU, the tournament's No. 8 seed, had beaten No. 9 seed Tech 101-90 on Saturday at the Coors Events Center. But Wednesday's loss more than trumped that win, dropping the Buffaloes to 15-16 overall and effectively eliminating them from consideration for a possible NIT berth.
Buffs coach Jeff Bzdelik said the Red Raiders (17-14) appeared a "step quicker" in the rematch and "stayed in possessions longer and in a more disciplined way than we did . . . they had an edge to their game that we lost after we started off in such a good way. Give them credit for what they did well - and we'll leave it at that."
The only offensive change in the Red Raiders from Saturday to Wednesday was that "they just made shots, they scored more," CU freshman Alec Burks said. "That was the name of the game. They just did it better."
Burks, of nearby Grandview, Mo., recorded a double-double (24 points, 10 rebounds) and put a punctuation mark on a brilliant freshman season.
Largely overlooked by Division I recruiters, Burks ended his first season as CU's all-time freshman scorer with 512 points. He called his season "a good one . . . I had a lot of ups and downs and I feel like I learned from mistakes, from the start of the year to the end of the year.
"I feel like I played better. It was a great freshman season for me."
Cory Higgins and Marcus Relphorde added 18 and 10, respectively, and along with Burks, return for a 2010-11 season that will be greatly anticipated by Bzdelik and Buffs fans. CU loses one senior - Dwight Thorne II - who was a nightly contributor and gets freshman guard Shannon Sharpe back after season-ending knee surgery in early November.
Add a forceful inside presence to the returning mix - Bzdelik and his staff are looking hard - and next March could be very different in Boulder.
"We accomplished a lot this year as a young basketball team," Bzdelik said. "The way we finished the year (winning three straight and four of the final six regular-season games) and the things we accomplished both on and off the court, we're building this program in the right way, in a very competitive way.
"And we need to understand that. It's hard right now, but we need to keep things in perspective."
The Buffs shot only 37.9 percent from the field in Wednesday's second half and committed 19 turnovers. The Red Raiders won the board battle 39-29 and outscored the Buffs' bench 30-9.
CU started fast in the Sprint Center - much the same way it did four days earlier at the Events Center. With Relphorde scoring eight of his team's first 11 points, CU went up 18-8 before Tech responded.
And the Red Raiders, burdened by a seven-game losing streak, responded with a purpose. Over the next 8 minutes, Tech outscored CU 24-6 to take its biggest lead (32-24) of the first half.
Bzdelik congratulated Tech on that and said he hoped his team learned from the Red Raiders' first-half push: "They came storming back and we never recovered from their run. I told my players after the game that successful people only momentarily get discouraged."
With CU desperate for a spark after Tech's rally, Burks supplied it. The 6-foot-6 wing player, named the league's rookie of the  year by the Big 12 coaches, scored CU's last nine points of the half, including seven on three consecutive possessions to pull his team within one (32-31) with 30 seconds before the break.
But on the Red Raiders' final possession of the half, the Buffs allowed John Roberson, whose 19 points topped four Tech players in double figures, an open look. He hit his fourth trey of the half, putting Tech up 35-31 at intermission.
For CU, it was a big come-down from Tech's Boulder visit, when the Buffs scored a season-high 53 first-half points and led the Red Raiders, 53-35, after the first 20 minutes.
In Saturday's game, said Roberson, "We kind of got mixed up because they run so many cuts and all that stuff. They have a pretty hard offense to guard. But this time around, we were locked in defensively; we knew exactly what they were going to do."
Roberson's late trey might have been the Red Raiders' biggest field goal of the game; it set the tone for what was coming in the next 20 minutes. Tech promptly outscored CU 8-0 to open the second half and took a 43-31 lead.
The Buffs tried, but never caught up. They didn't score until almost 5 minutes had elapsed in the second half - a three-pointer by Nate Tomlinson to make the score 43-34.
The Red Raiders led by as many as 18 points (67-49) before the Buffs whittled the deficit to 8 (73-61) in the final 3 minutes on a three-pointer by Burks, whose long-range shooting might be the most improved facet of his game in Year 1.
But a 7-0 run put the game away for Tech and put CU's season on ice.
A reflective Bzdelik said the Buffs obviously took a step forward this season, but more are needed: "We're knocking on the door. We just need to bust it down . . . bust through it."
Contact: BG.Brooks@Colorado.EDU
