Colorado
7-4
Texas Southern
1-9
Brooks: Buffs Get Into Giving, But Hold On To Win
December 22, 2011 | Men's Basketball, B.G. Brooks
BOULDER - Nothing against holiday spirit, but the Colorado Buffaloes went overboard with their giving Thursday night. They allowed Texas Southern back into what had all the early earmarks of a pre-Christmas stocking stuffer before escaping with a 56-51 win at the Coors Events Center.
A perplexed Tad Boyle knows what he wants under his tree - and any shopping mall St. Nick who has watched the Buffs this season already knows what tops the CU coach's list.
"I'm asking Santa for a consistent team," Boyle said. "Consistently good or consistently bad . . . then I'll know what we have to work on. Right now, it's a hard thing to manage, but I have to do a better job of it. It's going to be on my mind for the next three days . . . we have to get better."
Boyle's frustration came from a festive first half that saw the Buffs handle the visitors' 2-3 zone, shoot 50 percent from the field, hold the Tigers to 22.7 percent and lead by as many as 23 points (32-9).
Said Boyle: "The first half there were so many good things that happened . . . but what we talk about (at halftime) and what our team does sometimes are different things."
Different, indeed . . . the second half was all switches and ashes for the Buffs as those shooting percentages nearly flipped (50 percent for Texas Southern, 28.6 for CU) and the home team's nice habits turned naughty. Whatever the reason(s), the Buffs were a different - and in a bad way - bunch in the last 20 minutes. The Tigers, playing perfectly respectable Grinches, made seven of their dozen steals in the second half and forced the Buffs into 12 of their 20 turnovers.
"Once again, it was a tale of two halves," said CU freshman guard Spencer Dinwiddie, who made four of five treys in the first half and finished five-for-six from beyond the arc. His 18 points were a team and career best. "We're just very inconsistent and until we solve that, we won't be a great team . . . you can't play basketball with an on/off switch."
Playing their eighth consecutive road game and searching for their first win in that stretch, the Tigers rallied behind a trapping defense that the Buffs had expected and the three-point shooting of guard Omar Strong (23 points). TSU closed to within three points (51-48) in the final half minute.
And although the visitors never led, they came close to making Christmas weekend very uncomfortable for the Buffs. CU (7-4) held off TSU (1-9) by making five of six free throws in the last 21.2 seconds - two of the foul shots by Dinwiddie and another pair by sophomore Andre Roberson, who added 11 points and 16 rebounds.
Senior Carlon Brown, who also contributed 11 points, said he and his teammates were guilty of "playing the scoreboard" and "not respecting our opponent" in the second half when they should have been focused on making every possession count. Other than that, added Brown, "There's no putting a finger on what we did in second half . . . so credit Texas Southern. We didn't have the mental toughness, the confidence, whatever it was, to stop them."
With his team leading 32-16 at halftime, Boyle said his first words in the locker room were "don't play the scoreboard, play the possession. Maybe they like not listening to their coach . . . we talked about it, so if that's what they did, shame on them."
In the second half, TSU coach Tony Harvey said his team was able to "speed (CU) up and make them uncomfortable. We made them turn the ball over a little bit. They didn't have as many sweet shots; they were contested looks and rushed shots."
If the Buffs wanted a night of working against a zone defense - their late November/early December nemesis - they got it. The Tigers opened in a 2-3 zone and rarely came out of it - even when Dinwiddie's long-range shooting in the first half temporarily turned the night in CU's favor.
The 6-5 Dinwiddie, who had scored at least 13 points in the previous five games, hit four of his five three-point attempts to key a 19-2 run that delivered a 20-point (26-6) CU lead. Over the next 5 minutes, that advantage increased to 32-9, but the Buffs settled for a 32-16 lead at intermission.
But their defense was every bit as impressive. In holding Texas Southern to a first-half low for an opponent this season, CU didn't allow the Tigers baskets on consecutive possessions until the first half's final 2:02.
But courtesy of Strong, who buried seven of his nine trey attempts for the night, the Tigers' three-point marksmanship picked up. After the Buffs opened the half with a 6-1 run to go up 38-17, Strong nailed consecutive treys to help cut the Tigers' deficit to 38-25.
And Strong and the Tigers weren't done. Turnovers on two straight possessions resulted in a pair of Strong field goals - one of them a trey - and a Fred Sturdivant layup brought TSU to within 41-36 with 9:52 to play.
What had appeared to be a holiday runaway suddenly had taken a wrong turn.
Brown and Dinwiddie got the Buffs back on track during a 7-0 run that opened a 48-36 lead with 7:14 remaining, each hitting a three-pointer and Brown adding a free throw.
Back came Strong and the Tigers. At the 4:01 mark, he hit his fourth trey of the half and pulled TSU to 50-43. The Tigers crept to 51-46 on a three-pointer by Lawrence Johnson-Danner with 38 seconds left, then 51-48 on goal tending call on Roberson with 27.2 remaining.
Roberson redeemed himself 6 seconds later with a pair of free throws to make it a two-possession game (53-48), and Dinwiddie's pair at 12.1Â pushed the Buffs up 55-48 before Strong answered with another trey (55-51).
One of two free throws by Nate Tomlinson with 5.8 seconds left sealed CU's escape but did nothing to soothe Boyle's frustration. "Right now, half to half, night to night, it's hard to know who to play," he said. "You get rotations because of consistent play."
He didn't have Askia Booker, a usual source of energy off the bench, because the freshman guard is recuperating from a stomach virus. And for the second straight game, he also was without forward Damiene Cain, who was sidelined with concussion symptoms.
Both players, said Boyle, might have been key contributors on Thursday night: "We needed 'Ski' and Damiene . . . I felt like down the stretch there I was comfortable with four guys on the floor. If I had any guts I would have played five-on-four and let these other guys watch because they're not getting it done. We are capable of it, but we didn't play like it."
Booker's and Cain's status for next week's final non-conference game is unknown, but a three-day Christmas break (practice resumes Monday afternoon) might help both. The Buffs return to the Events Center on Wednesday against New Orleans (7 p.m., ROOT Sports).
CU debuts in the Pac-12 on New Year's Eve (4 p.m.) against Utah in the Events Center, and also plays host to Washington (Thursday, Jan. 5, 7 p.m.) and Washington State (Saturday, Jan. 7, 2 p.m.).
Tickets, with prices starting at $10, can be purchased at CUBuffs.com/tickets or by calling 303-49-BUFFS.
Contact: BG.Brooks@Colorado.EDU
