Colorado University Athletics
Colorado
23-13
California (Second Round)
18-15
Buffs Eliminate Bears, Move Step Closer To The Big Apple
March 19, 2011 | Men's Basketball, B.G. Brooks
BOULDER - For a coach like Tad Boyle, a Greeley kid who remembers the New York Knicks in their heyday, the prospect of taking a team to play in Madison Square Garden is beyond alluring. But despite his Colorado team being a win away from making the Garden its destination, Boyle preferred to revel in Friday night's accomplishment rather than ponder what might be secured on Tuesday.
CU's 89-72 win against California in the NIT second round assured the 2010-11 Buffaloes a prominent spot in the school's basketball records. With 23 victories this season, Boyle's first team is the most successful in 108 years of CU hoops  - a feat he called "a pretty special accomplishment for these young men . . . it's a standard for teams to hold themselves to in the future . . . 23 wins and we're not done yet.
"Tonight's carrot was the record; Tuesday night's carrot will be Madison Square Garden."
CU returns to the suddenly uproarious Coors Events Center on Tuesday (7 p.m., ESPN) to play the winner of Sunday's Fairfield-Kent State contest. If the Buffs win that one, they travel to New York for the NIT semifinals on March 29. CU last reached the NIT semis in the 1990-91 season.
"We've obviously got to focus on the next game," CU senior guard Levi Knutson said. "But we've come a long way, and I think we've responded to adversity really well. I knew this group would, so hopefully we can come and take care of business on Tuesday and enjoy a trip to New York."
The Buffs (23-13) cleared the next-to-last hurdle by eliminating the Golden Bears (18-15) with a solid, characteristically up-tempo second half. CU won the board battle 42-33, outscored Cal in the paint 34-18, got 12 points off of 13 Cal turnovers and held a 17-10 advantage in second-chance points. The Buffs committed just five turnovers all game, their first coming in their 50th possession, which Boyle called "a pretty special stat."
Boyle, who played in the Garden as a Kansas freshman and called it "one of the highlights of my career," also acknowledged a pair of pretty special players. Senior Cory Higgins, who had three points at halftime, scored 19 after intermission. While Higgins carried the second-half, sophomore Alec Burks shouldered the first, scoring 13 of his 25 in the first 20 minutes as the Buffs poked and prodded the Bears' zone defense.
"Cory and Alec are playing at a high level . . . they've put this team on their shoulders," said Boyle of his prized pair that has accounted for 99 points in CU's pair of NIT wins. Burks is averaging 26, Higgins 23.1.
On a night when his team left its mark in the CU record book, Burks did, too. With 3:29 remaining, Burks converted a three-point play - a put-back and a free throw - to surpass Cliff Meely as CU's seasonal scoring leader. Meely scored 729 in the 1970-71 season. Burks now has 734.
"I didn't know anything about it until someone said something," Burks said. "That's great to have a record in the CU history books."
Leaving to a standing ovation, Burks and the rest of the CU starters went to the bench with 3:17 to play and the Buffs up 85-70.
With spring break beginning Friday, Boyle had been concerned about second-round attendance. But a bigger crowd (7,614) turned out Friday night than Wednesday night (6,299). Student attendance and the crowds in general "have been great this season," said junior forward Austin Dufault. "The student section could have given up on us after we didn't make the NCAA Tournament, but they respect what we do on the court and they wanted to support us . . . That was huge for us tonight and it's been huge throughout the tournament."
Boyle agreed: "I was blown away by the support. Obviously, these guys are easy to rally around right now after what they've been through this week. The way we've responded to it is a testament to their character, but it's also a testament to our fans and how loyal they've been all year long."
The Buffs led 37-34 at the half, but it wasn't because of their perimeter defense. The Bears closed out the final 7:12 with six three-pointers, rallying from a pair of nine-point deficits. Aside from those 18 points on treys, Cal's only other points during that span came on two free throws by junior guard Jorge Gutierrez, who was coming off a 25-point performance in the Bears' first-round win against Ole Miss.
Gutierrez, who attended Denver's Lincoln High School before spending a year at Findlay College Prep (Henderson, Nevada), led all first-half scorers with 16 points. But they would be his only points of the game. He went to the bench with 14:24 remaining after spraining his right ankle, then taking a knee to the head and suffering a possible concussion. Cal team officials didn't want to take a chance on him returning.
"It was iffy enough that we weren't going to risk that," Cal Coach Mike Montgomery said.
Added Boyle: "It was a big blow. He is the heart and soul of that team. When he went down . . . it was advantage Colorado."
But the game didn't open that way. After Cal went up 5-0, CU countered with seven points by Burks in a 90-second span and finally overtook the Bears 9-7 on Dufault's first points of the tournament. He finished with seven points, all in the first half, but played a solid game - four rebounds, two assists and a steal while picking up four fouls mostly guarding 6-foot-8 Harper Kamp.
Over the next 6 minutes, the Buffs outscored the Bears 11-2 to take an 18-9 lead, with the final basket coming when Burks split the Cal zone and lobbed a pass to Andre Roberson, who elevated from the right baseline and finished the play with a dunk.
A couple of minutes later, Cal went on its three-point spree and CU's lead evaporated. Boyle said the Bears hit a couple of treys in transition, another couple after out-of-bounds plays. "Some of that is on us, but they made some deep threes and some open threes - but we weren't contesting them."
The Buffs had an answer when the second half started.
After Marcus Relphorde opened the scoring with a reverse layup, Higgins, who scored three first-half points in 13 minutes (he picked up two fouls), connected on three consecutive treys as the Buffs restored their nine-point lead.
"Higgins hurt us at the start of the second half," Montgomery said.
But during Higgins' surge, CU lost point guard Nate Tomlinson to a left shoulder separation. He left the court with his arm dangling and went to the locker room with 18:01 to play. Tomlinson, who had three first-half points and two rebounds, did not return, and Boyle said his status in unknown for Tuesday.
"He ran into a pretty solid pick," Boyle said.
When the Bears closed to 48-44, a Knutson trey launched the Buffs on an 11-2 run that opened CU's biggest lead of the night to that point - 59-46. The final five points of that run came on one possession. Scoring on a breakaway layup, Higgins was intentionally fouled. His free throw completed his three-point play. The Buffs kept the ball and Burks added another pair of free throws.
Montgomery called that sequence "a huge turnaround. One, we turn it over so that leads to a breakaway. In the official's opinion it was an intentional foul (on Emerson Murray), so that's the end of that story."
The Buffs weren't done. After Cal got a free throw by Richard Solomon, Higgins hit another jumper and Relphorde added a three-pointer to send CU ahead 64-47 with 13:35 to play. And during that 16-3 CU run, Cal lost Gutierrez.
Even so, the Bears rallied briefly. A 9-0 run cut CU's lead to eight (64-56) with 9:51 remaining, and the Bears closed to eight again (71-63) on a conventional three-point play by Bak Bak just over a minute later.
The Buffs restored their double-digit advantage on four consecutive free throws by Burks and Shannon Sharpe and never allowed the Bears back to within double figures. CU's future Pac-12 opponent was on the ropes.
Higgins added an exclamation point dunk with 4:28 to play, sending CU ahead 82-67. But the 6-1 Sharpe one-upped Higgins with a soaring slam off a Trent Beckley miss in the final half minute, bringing the roaring crowd and astonished CU bench to their feet. CU's slam of the season also earned Sharpe the No. 1 highlight - that's right, No. 1 - on ESPN's nightly Top 10.
Said Burks, Sharpe's best bud among the Buffs: "I thought it was crazy. I knew he could do that stuff since he got here. Everybody got to see it like I have. I knew he was capable of that."
It was that kind of night for the Buffs. Another one like it and . . . CU on Broadway.
Contact: BG.Brooks@Colorado.EDU
