Colorado University Athletics
Brooks: Boyle In Visitor's Role At His Homecoming
February 18, 2011 | Men's Basketball, B.G. Brooks
Well, almost everything.
A former University of Kansas basketball player (1982-85) and alum, Boyle knows the Jayhawks will be a little past stirred up when his Colorado team arrives in Allen Fieldhouse for Saturday's tipoff (noon MST, ESPN).
Mere hours after ascending to No. 1 in this week's national basketball polls, KU visited bitter rival Kansas State and was embarrassed, 84-68. That means Boyle and his team catch KU after a stunning loss . . . again.
It's a replay of last month, when the Jayhawks visited Boulder three days after Texas had snapped KU's 69-game home winning streak. So we're justified in dragging out this stat once more: The Jayhawks haven't lost back-to-back games since mid-January of the 2005-06 season (59-55 to Kansas State in Lawrence, 89-86 to Missouri in overtime in Columbia).
That was Coach Bill Self's third season at KU, so his dealing with losing streaks is as rare as a tsunami warning in Lawrence. Self's take on losing, as outlined on a recent Big 12 coaches teleconference, is not letting one loss become two, two become three, etc. And he's done pretty well in managing that philosophy, particularly on a home court where several years separate most losses.
The last time CU won in Lawrence was Feb. 10, 1983, and, ironically, Boyle was dressed in KU colors. Almost three decades have reduced his recollection of the Buffs' 75-74 win to this: "I remember Jay Humphries (CU guard) had a heck of a game . . . he stole my ball at half court, I remember that. Other than that, I don't have a lot of recollection. But he ripped me at half court, I do remember that."
Boyle hasn't been back to Lawrence since dropping in for a KU-Iowa State game on a Saturday afternoon "22 or 23 years ago . . . I've seen one game since I graduated, which is sad. But when you get into coaching, you're hopping around and there's not a lot time for trips to go back."
But he's still got plenty of friends there - including former KU player Chris Piper, who now works for the Jayhawk Radio Network - and throughout Kansas as well. Many of the friendships were made while Boyle was in school, many more made while he was on Mark Turgeon's Wichita State staff.
Boyle was asked earlier this week to project how he'll feel coming out of the visitor's locker room for the first time at Allen Fieldhouse. "I don't know, it's been so long since I've come out of the home locker room, it's hard for me to remember," he said. "I haven't thought about it a lot, to be honest with you.
"I'm sure there's going to be a lot of memories that flow through my mind and body . . . but right now I'm just thinking about how we can prepare our team as best we can to go in there and give them a battle."
He says he'll return to his alma mater with "no preconceived expectations" about how he might be welcomed: "Everybody's told me they treat former players very well when they go back. We'll see. I hope the players treat us well, I don't care about the fans."
The Buffs have come within six or fewer points of the Jayhawks in three of their last four meetings. In the 2009 trip to Lawrence, CU lost 66-61. The following season, KU needed overtime to win 72-66 in Boulder - after CU had possession for a final shot to win in regulation. And last month in the Coors Events Center, KU eked out an 82-78 win. The lone Jayhawks blowout in the four most recent meetings was 94-74 last February in Lawrence.
Because Boyle knows the difficulties of playing in Allen Fieldhouse under the best of conditions, he won't concede that CU's weekend visit is ill-timed: "Obviously Bill is going to have their attention . . . they've lost two games and we've caught them on the back end of both of them. (But) I don't read a lot into that stuff."
The Buffs haven't played since their grind-it-out 58-56 victory against Kansas State last Saturday in Boulder. Boyle believes the mid-week break was good for his team, allowing two days of rest and catching up on academics. The time off also might have been beneficial for the health of point guard Nate Tomlinson, who hasn't played for two games due to lingering pain following an ankle sprain.
Tomlinson's role as a distributor in the offense can't be understated. Boyle has told him to return when he's able to make a contribution, but not until, and Tomlinson's practice time this week has been sporadic. The Buffs are more efficient offensively when he's in the game, so his presence Saturday would improve odds that are, let's be honest, on the long side. CU's record in Lawrence is 7-60, with 27 consecutive losses.
But this could be a number on the brighter side: six of the players on the 2009 Buffs team that played the Jayhawks to within five points (66-61) are back for CU's final trip to Allen Fieldhouse.
Boyle, however, is a here-and-now guy: "I really haven't looked at that . . . I think every year is a new year," he said. "They're No. 1 in the country and just got beat (Monday). We're not going to sneak up on them. But I do think the one thing we're going to have to do is try and control the tempo of the game on offense.
"Defensively, we're just going to try and slow them down as best we can. I thought we defended them really well here, and they scored 82 points. They're just so powerful offensively . . . you've got to pick your poison. The Morris twins (Marcus, Markief) have been so good all year . . . They weren't their selves (Monday at Manhattan). I don't know if you can count on that, but you can hope for it."
Rather than K-State exposing any KU weaknesses, the Wildcats simply controlled the game's tempo and got a mega-lift from their home crowd.
"Bill is probably looking at the Kansas Jayhawks and what they didn't do," Boyle said. "Now, all the credit goes to K-State, but the bottom line is that Kansas has the firepower. You just hope they're misfiring a little bit (Saturday)."
But the fact is, CU still has accomplished something KU couldn't - a sweep of K-State. Those two wins are what the NCAA Tournament selection committee will deem as "quality." The K-State sweep, noted Boyle, "certainly doesn't hurt us. They're a quality team, they were both quality wins - and that's what you look for at this time of year. When you get to February, every win is a quality win. It doesn't matter who you're playing - home or road - especially in this league."
But the Buffs' burning question in mid-March will be, "Are there enough other quality wins?" The ones that got away in the Big 12 - Nebraska, Oklahoma, Baylor, Texas A&M - are not only regrettable, but costly as the season trickles down.
Counting Saturday, CU has five regular-season games and the Big 12 Tournament (March 9-12, Kansas City) remaining. The road trips: Saturday at KU, Wednesday at Texas Tech, March 2 at Iowa State. The home games: Feb. 26 vs. Texas, March 5 vs. Nebraska.
At 16-10 overall and 5-6 in the league, the Buffs' NCAA Tournament hopes haven't been exterminated. OK, so their finish will have to be extraordinary, maybe taking three of the last five regular-season games and another one in KC to reach 20 wins. If they win twice in KC to reach 21 . . . who knows?
Since 1997, CU has hit the 20-win plateau three times (2003, 2006 were the others) - and two of those seasons were rewarded with NCAA bids. Four Big 12 teams (Texas, KU, Missouri, Texas A&M) already have 20 wins, with five others at 16 (CU, Oklahoma State) or 17 (Baylor, Nebraska, K-State). The Buffs have beaten two of the four teams in the 16-17 win group, and a split with Nebraska could be critical on the final regular-season Saturday.
But we're getting ahead of ourselves; KU is next, and Boyle isn't focused on "bracketology." The circumstances surrounding his return to a campus chock full of memories couldn't be more different. A Greeley native who crossed the border to play in college, he's now coaching at a school whose student body "booed me every time I touched it. The game back in Lawrence was kind of just another game . . .
"But (now) I'll be on the other side as a coach than I was as a player. There's obviously some storylines there - I don't know what they are . . . I've been very lucky in my life, playing with great teammates and for great coaches. I'm blessed to be where I am and I'm thankful for it."
The biggest potential storyline for the Buffs isn't difficult to conjure up: In CU's last trip to Lawrence as a Big 12 member, Tad Boyle returns to his alma mater as the Buffs' first-year head coach . . . and shocks the college hoops world. It's OK to dream.
Contact: BG.Brooks@Colorado.EDU
