Colorado University Athletics
Brooks: Record 23rd Win Motivation Enough For Buffs
March 17, 2011 | Men's Basketball, B.G. Brooks
BOULDER - Give the NIT Selection Committee this: Top seeds get royal treatment. The way the tournament is structured, the four No. 1 seeds in the 32-team field - provided they win - are spared traveling until the semifinal round. Win three games on your home court, book that trip to New York.
How does Buffaloes on Broadway sound? It's an opportune scenario, and certainly one that Colorado Coach Tad Boyle is dangling before his team as it prepares for Friday's second-round game against California at the Coors Events Center (7:30 p.m., ESPNU).
But there's something else, something with more permanence that Boyle is putting before the Buffs: Advance Friday night and Boyle's first CU team sets a school record for most wins in a season (23). The 1996-97 CU team - featuring sophomore Chauncey Billups - finished 22-10.
"When you keep playing, milestones come," Boyle said after CU's 88-74 first-round win over Texas Southern on Wednesday night. A 23rd win "will be the standard for any (CU) teams coming in the future. That's what it's all about, winning basketball games . . . this team has something really special in that it can put itself in the record books and, obviously, we hope that it's a record that's temporary."
Boyle believed his team, at times, stumbled through an expected post-Selection Sunday funk. "But we got it out of us, now it's time to move on," he said Thursday afternoon. "We've got to give Cal our best shot, because anything less is not going to be good enough."
Senior guard Levi Knutson said he noticed the funk mentioned by his coach more in the second half than at tipoff: "I actually thought initially we came out pretty strong. Our starters got us off to a good start, but I noticed (the funk) a little in the second half when we were just trading baskets . . . we just didn't sustain it like we're going to need to (Friday)."
"I hope that's out of our system," added senior forward Marcus Relphorde. "I think we were focused. Of course, we'd love to be in the NCAAs right now, but we all have a goal to accomplish in the NIT to try and prove people wrong. Coach pointed out this a real important game for us . . . we could become the winningest team at Colorado. So that's definitely something we all want to accomplish. We'll be focused."
Relphorde (seven) and Knutson (six) combined for only 13 points against TSU. Junior forward Austin Dufault and senior guard Nate Tomlinson, both starters, didn't score. Ah, that probably needs to change in Round Two.
Knutson said CU's ball movement and movement in general must improve against Cal: "We had stretches (against TSU) where we were standing around too much."
Relphorde agreed on the movement factor, adding, "We need to be a little more patient. I think we played pretty good defense, but this is a different team, more dangerous offensively."
Of his game, Relphorde said, "I didn't really shoot the ball that well from three (he missed three attempts). I just need to find my role in the zone offense - it's been something I've been struggling with this year. I need to be as active as I can and bring some energy in whatever I way I can."
Cal has outrebounded its opponents by a 2.5 margin a game this season, averaging 35 boards. CU won Wednesday night's board battle 37-29, while Cal was outrebounded 38-32 by Mississippi. Nonetheless, the Bears advanced with a 77-74 win in Berkeley. Less than 12 hours later - at 3:30 p.m. Thursday - they were practicing in the Events Center.
Cal, which finished 10-8 in the Pac-10 (tied for fourth), is coached by veteran Mike Montgomery. His hoops roots are mostly western. Among his five stops as an assistant was a stint at Colorado State. He spent eight seasons as Montana's head coach and 18 as Stanford's head coach before leaving to coach the Golden State Warriors for two years. He's in his third season at Cal (64-36, 611-280 overall), with this being the first season under Montgomery that the Bears (18-14) haven't won at least 20 games and reached the NCAA Tournament.
Boyle doesn't know Montgomery as well as he will in future seasons, when CU begins Pac-12 play. But he's seen enough of Montgomery's teams over the years and enough of this Cal team over the last 24 hours to draw this conclusion: "They want to win and are well-coached. They're playing with a skeleton crew - seven scholarship players. But they play with unbelievable toughness and heart; they don't beat themselves. Mike Montgomery is a good basketball coach."
Against Ole Miss, Cal didn't have its leading rebounder, center Markhuri Sanders-Frison, who suffered a dislocated shoulder in Tuesday's practice. (He was averaging 7.4 boards and 10.9 points. Freshman Richard Solomon filled in with 10 rebounds in the NIT opener.)
Also against the Rebels, junior forward Harper Kamp still might have been bothered by a touch of the flu. He received IV fluids on Tuesday, but played 30 minutes Wednesday, scoring 11 points. Boyle called the 6-foot-8, 245 Kamp "a load," noting that Cal's inside-out offense usually goes through Kamp.
The outside portion of the offense usually falls to guards Jorge Gutierrez and Allen Crabbe, who combined for 45 points Wednesday. Guitierrez accounted for 25 of that total and added six assists, five rebounds, four steals and a blocked shot. Boyle called him "as good a guard as we'll play against all year . . . he's terrific, the best guard in college basketball nobody's heard of. He can really play."
Defensively, the Bears favor a zone, which the Buffs have had success against this season.
The Big 12 team that most resembles Cal is . . . Nebraska. "Just because they're very solid and disciplined defensively," Boyle said. "They don't beat themselves and play through their post guys."
Points of reference: CU and Nebraska split their 2011 series, with the Buffs losing 79-67 in Lincoln before finishing regular-season play with a 67-57 win in Boulder. The Cornhuskers' comparison strikes a chord with Relphorde: "We've just got to be ready for a grind-out game (Friday) night."
But catching Cal at the Events Center is the Buffs' ace. "We're pretty good in this building," said Knutson, alluding to CU's 15-2 home record this season. Nice edge - and that's how the NIT seeding process intended it to be.
Contact: BG.Brooks@Colorado.EDU
