Colorado University Athletics
Colorado
15-16
Oregon State (First Round)
17-14
Brooks: 'Ski' Hits ON Button, Buffs Oust Beavers, 78-71
March 11, 2015 | Men's Basketball, B.G. Brooks
LAS VEGAS – Figuring out Askia Booker is too much for one mind – sometimes even his. It's not easy being "Ski." By his admission, the first half of Colorado's first-round Pac-12 Tournament game against Oregon State found him not ready to play.
Midway through the second half, he reached the ready point after the Buffaloes reached out to him. Booker responded. Big. CU surged to a 78-71 win, setting a Thursday quarterfinal date (7:10 p.m. MDT, Pac-12 Networks) with No. 2 seed Oregon.
The Buffs' Wednesday night win at the MGM Grand Garden Arena wasn't all-Askia, but their pull-away period in the second half was unquestionably Booker Time. Hitting three treys and two free throws, he scored 11 points during a 13-2 run that helped created distance between No. 10 seed CU (15-16) and No. 7 seed OSU (17-14).
To that point, Booker had scored eight points – all of them on foul shots after going oh-for-five from the field in the first half. "It's all myself; it's in my head," "Ski" said of his first-half shooting malaise. "I'm not going to say anything about anybody's defense (particularly OSU's 2-3 zone) . . . it's just all in my head. I wasn't ready to play. Plain and simple."
With the No. 7 seed Beavers leading 52-50 and 11:36 remaining, Booker hit a pair of free throws to tie the score. Teammates Xavier Talton and Dustin Thomas paid him a visit before he stepped to the free throw line, virtually echoing what associate head coach Jean Prioleau told him during a timeout.
That was "just compete," recalled Booker. But Talton and Thomas were more specific.
"I just told him, 'Look man, we're all following you. This is your team. We just need you to play, play your game. I just want you to get going,'" Talton said. "I always tell him before every game that we need him to get going early, early, early. I mean, he's a special player."
Said Thomas: "He was shooting free throws and I went up to him and said, 'I'm doing the best I can to screen . . . I want you to take your shots.' He wasn't hot at the time, I think he was like oh-for-five or oh-for-six. I said we need you to get going. And that's what he did."
After missing his only first-half 3-point attempt and five field goal tries altogether, Booker finished three-of-six from long range and led all scorers with 20 points. And this was after not hitting his first field goal until nearly 30 minutes in (11:02 of the second half). His final shooting stats were an unremarkable 4-of-13, but the three second-half three-balls were a balm for the Buffs.
OF HIS FIRST OPEN TREY, Booker said, "I took advantage of it – and it felt good. From there on out if I (saw) myself open again, I just kept shooting them. They kept falling. I ran with the momentum and then I got the easy one at the rim. Things open eventually when you get hot."
And the heat was turned up at the right time.
"I thought the first three he hit away from our bench kind of got – you could see his body language, like, 'OK, here we go,'" said CU coach Tad Boyle. "When he gets hot, he's pretty good, as you guys know."
But there were other Buffs who were pretty good as well. Three of Booker's teammates also reached double figures, with Josh Scott adding 16 points and 14 rebounds for his sixth double-double of the season and 21st of his career. Tre'Shaun Fletcher scored a career-high 12 points and Thomas contributed 10.
Plus, the Buffs were uncanny at the foul line, hitting a season-best 92.3 percent (24-of-26). Booker led in that category too, sinking nine of 10, while Scott was eight-for-eight. The Buffs finished the night shooting 50 percent from the field (24-of-48) and their 78 points were the most the Beavers – the Pac-12's No. 2 scoring defense at 58.5 points a game – had given up all season.
CU also won the board battle convincingly (39-26) and got 20 points from its bench to OSU's nine. But the Buffs had to overcome 18 turnovers – 13 in the second half – to put away the team that had beaten them 72-58 last month in Corvallis. It was the Beavers' only win in their last seven regular-season games, but in this one they got no closer than five points in the final seven minutes while the Buffs built their lead to 10 twice.
CU has now advanced past the opening round in all four years of the Pac-12 Tournament and becomes only the second No. 10 seed in the Pac-10/12 Tournament to beat a No. 7 seed since the conference began seeding all tournament teams in 2006 (other: Utah over USC, 69-66, 2013).
The Buffs trailed 40-38 at halftime, but they probably felt OK about it. They were down by as many as seven points before rallying to within two, then were behind by six before a 7-0 run featuring four points from Scott and a trey by Fletcher put them up 38-37 in the final 1:42.
And considering the first half they played in Corvallis last month, the Buffs had to feel really, really good about Wednesday night's opening 20 minutes. In that 14-point loss, CU scored 12 first-half points, shot 14 percent and was down 34-12 – with all those figures low marks in the Boyle era.
SO, ALL THAT CONSIDERED, a two-point halftime deficit was something the Buffs could live with – and hopefully overcome. But if that was to happen, their 3-point defense would have to improve greatly. The Beavers, who shot only 32 percent from beyond the arc in the regular season, hit seven of their 16 first-half treys (44 percent) against the Buffs. But they were only two-of-nine in the second half after a Boyle halftime admonition to tighten down on the perimeter and everywhere else.
"Defense in general was emphasized, it just wasn't three-point shooting," Scott said. "It was the fact that we let (Malcom) Duvivier get anywhere on the court – in the lane, getting his own offensive rebound – and we were letting (Olaf) Schaftenaar shoot. We knew we had had to change things or it was going to be Washington State (a 96-91 OT loss) all over again."
Duvivier and Gary Payton II led OSU with 17 points each, while Schaftenaar added 16, going four-of-eight from beyond the arc. But after allowing the Beavers to shoot 43.8 percent from the field in the first half, the Buffs held them to 28.6 in the second.
The 6-10 Schaftenaar's second triple of the half gave the Beavers their 40-38 lead at intermission, and he opened the second-half scoring with another for a five-point OSU advantage. After one of two free throws by Jarmal Reid, the Buffs caught up and tied it up 46-46 on a conventional three-point play and fastbreak layup by Fletcher, followed by a 3-pointer from the left wing by Dom Collier.
At the 10-minute mark, the Buffs led 58-54 – their largest lead of the game to that point – and they could credit Booker, who credited his teammates: "I played like crap in the first half but they kept the game close. They played well, they scored the ball."
Up 63-54 after Booker's third triple with 9:02 to play, CU held its nine-point lead until Payton scored on a soft hook in the lane and Schaftenaar knocked down his fourth trey to pull OSU within 67-63. But an officials review resulted in Payton being assessed a flagrant foul after flooring Thomas, whose two free throws gave the Buffs a 69-63 advantage with6:08 left.
CU held it, built on it and advanced.
"We found a way," said Boyle, mentioning the Buffs' ability to overcome loose first-half defense and 13 second-half turnovers. "And that's what you have to do in tournament basketball. So we played well enough."
At this time of year, well enough means good enough to stay and play. For opening night, the Buffs will take it. For night No. 2 against the No. 2 seed, they know they will have to be better – and in Booker's case, ready early.
"I'll be ready," Booker said.
"Our whole team will be ready," Boyle added. "We'll be ready to roll."
Contact: BG.Brooks@Colorado.EDU
