Colorado University Athletics
Colorado
11-12, 4-7
California
16-9, 6-6
Brooks: Buffs Rally Falls Short In 68-61 Loss To Bears
February 12, 2015 | Men's Basketball, B.G. Brooks
BOULDER – The Colorado Buffaloes have dipped below .500 for the first time this season, but coach Tad Boyle promises his team hasn't bobbed for the third time and won't drown in its misery. But make no mistake, the misery runs deep.
"My job is to figure out how we can turn a game like this into a win . . . we're down right now but I don't think we're out," Boyle claimed Thursday night after the Buffs lost to Cal 68-61 despite rallying from a late 10-point deficit and closing to within 63-61 with 1:40 to play.
But CU, now 11-12 overall (4-7 Pac-12), faltered down the stretch while Cal prospered. After Askia Booker's 3-pointer made it a two-point game and offered hope to the Coors Events Center crowd of 9,017, the Buffs were finished scoring. Cal tucked away its fifth consecutive win on a layup in the final half minute by Tyrone Wallace and won for the first time in Boulder since 1974.
The Bears (16-9, 6-6) scored their final three points from the free throw line, getting a pair by David Kravish and one by Jabari Bird.
Boyle credited Cal's ability to make "big plays down the stretch – I think they scored on five of their last seven possessions" and lamented his team's inability to "finish at the rim" even though the Buffs collected 16 offensive rebounds to the Bears' nine.
"It was a tough loss for our guys (but) we didn't play well enough offensively or defensively in the second half to win this game," Boyle said.
At halftime, CU trailed only 28-27 – and that was after rallying from seven points back. Cal briefly surrendered the lead (29-28) on a Booker layup, then never trailed again – and that was mainly due to CU's recurring ineffectiveness in defending the perimeter.
The Bears became the fifth Buffs opponent to hit 10 or more 3-pointers, with sophomore Jordan Mathews hitting five of Cal's 10. Mathews didn't attempt a trey in the first half but finished 5-of-7 from long range and finished with a game-high 22 points. Wallace added 16 and Kravish 14.
For the second game since returning from his back ailment, Josh Scott led the Buffs with 17 points while Booker contributed 11. Scott said CU's fourth home loss of the season and the first back-to-back home losses of the Boyle era "hurts a lot. We really care about showing love for the home town and we want to win for ourselves here at home.
"This is our home turf; we don't want people to win here. It's pretty miserable to have the CU song playing (at the end of the game) knowing we just lost. That's not a good feeling at all."
And there was little of a feel-good nature about the Buffs' shooting. They were 22-of-60 from the field (36.7 percent) and made only three of their 10 trey attempts. CU's five starters went 15-of-47 from the field.
Boyle conceded there is a hesitancy among the Buffs to shoot from long range – "And I don't know why." He cited CU's 39 percent from behind the arc in Pac-12 play, adding, "When we've got an open three we've got to knock it down."
But the Buffs also have to defend the three, and guard Jaron Hopkins conceded that didn't happen: "We let them get hot . . . we just let them get going and we knew that we weren't supposed to."
The Buffs trailed 28-27 at halftime, but only 5 minutes earlier they were down 23-16 – their largest deficit of the first 20 minutes. But CU got an improbable spark on a 9-3 run to start making up those seven points.
Defending near midcourt, Scott batted a pass away, retrieved it and dribbled in – not very fast but efficiently – for an uncontested dunk. The CEC crowd roared its approval and stayed in an uproarious mood when Hopkins scored on a third-try put-back.
After a Sam Singer trey gave Cal a 26-20, CU got one of two free throws from Scott, a baseline jumper from Tory Miller and a spinning layup from freshman Dom Collier, who made his first career start. The Bears' lead had been cut to 26-25, and 1:40 later the half ended with Cal holding its one-point advantage.
CU had put itself in prime position to make a second-half move – if someone could make Mathews uncomfortable from the perimeter. No Buffs defender seemed up for it. Only 5 minutes into the second half he had tried three treys and made all of them.
The Buffs were down 43-35, and a possession later Mathews left the perimeter, went inside for a tip-in and gave the Bears their first double-digit lead of the game, 45-35. If the Buffs weren't on the ropes, they were staggering.
When burly wing Dwight Tarwater hit Cal's ninth triple of the game, the Bears went up 50-39 with 10:39 remaining. But the Buffs weren't done; Xavier Talton answered with a triple and Scott hit a soft banker from the left side to bring CU to within 50-44 at the 9:16 mark.
Pulling to 50-46 on a free throw each by Hopkins and Dustin Thomas, the Buffs missed their next four field goal attempts and fell back again by 10 (56-46) when Mathews, of course, drained another trey from the left wing.
The Buffs crept to 61-56 on a Scott stuff with 2:41 to play, then to 63-58 on a pair of Scott free throws half a minute later. Booker's 3-pointer with 1:40 remaining got CU to 63-61, but Scott missed a 15-footer to tie with 54 seconds left and Cal controlled the rebound.
After a timeout, Wallace got to the front of the rim almost uncontested and laid in a floater. Up 65-61 with 21 seconds left, Kravish sealed Cal's 'W' with two free throws 7 seconds later. After CU committed its 12th turnover, Jabari Bird hit one of two free throws and the Buffs' night was done.
"I feel bad for our fans," Boyle said. "I think our fans expect more out of us." He found no fault in the Buffs' "fight, effort and competitiveness" but still left the CEC feeling "like I'm letting people down and that's not a good feeling. All I know, and all that I have known my whole life, is to come back the next day ready to fight, ready to scratch, ready to claw and ready to get better.
"That's what I plan to do, that's what our players need to do and that's what our coaching staff needs to do. We have to figure this thing out because we have players that are capable of getting it done, but we're not. As a coach, that's extremely frustrating."
CU returns to the CEC on Sunday afternoon to face Stanford (2 p.m., FS1) in the first game of a men's/women's doubleheader. The CU women play Washington (5:30 p.m.).
Contact: BG.Brooks@Colorado.EDUÂ
