Colorado University Athletics
Colorado
14-15, 7-10
Washington
15-14, 4-13
Scott Leads Buffs to Satisfying Road Win, 64-47
March 05, 2015 | Men's Basketball
SEATTLE - The Alaska Airlines Arena holds painful memories for Colorado men's basketball. The last time the Buffaloes played there, Spencer Dinwiddie cut on his left foot just past midcourt, collapsed in a heap, and Colorado's program is still recovering.
Thursday night was different. The Buffs eviscerated the Washington Huskies 64-47 for their first win in Seattle in 59 years in front of a crowd that could be generously described as sparse.
Colorado (14-15, 7-10 Pac-12) won behind 21 points and nine rebounds from Josh Scott, who played unquestionably his best game since his return from injury, and 11 points and seven boards from Xavier Johnson.
The Buffs shot 44 percent from the field, assisted on 14 of their 25 buckets and committed just eight turnovers.
"It's a big deal, we need to get on a roll here going into the Pac-12 Tournament," Scott said. "We're a capable team when we pay attention to defense and rebounding and actually move the ball around a little bit. But, we're capable of a lot of things and I think it's time for us to show that we're a talented team, but also the work that goes into winning."
Colorado's loss to Washington (15-14, 4-13) a month and a half ago was a war of attrition; neither team shot well and the Huskies won that defensive struggle at the buzzer. Thursday's game began in the same vein. The Buffs started 2-of-12 from the field, Washington 3-of-20.
Huskies coach Lorenzo Romar dug deep into his already thin bench — Washington forwards Shawn Kemp and Donaven Dorsey sat out with injury; Gilles Dierickx, who averages five minutes per game, made his first career start for an already thin frontcourt, and walk-on Dan Kingma, had played in seven games before Thursday, and Romar put him on the floor for 16 minutes.
Andrew Andrews dropped 20 points for Washington, but the Huskies got little offense from anyone else. They shot 30 percent as a team. Nigel Williams-Goss, their leading scorer, shot just 4-of-14 and only dished out one assist despite leading the Pac-12 in dimes (6.1 apg., 11th nationally).
Still, the Huskies' 2-3 zone defense, which so vexed Colorado in their matchup in Boulder, worked well early. The Buffs were tentative and indecisive. In one possession, Tre'Shaun Fletcher passed up an open three, then an open layup, then dished to Johnson, who missed a dunk.
Once the Buffs settled in, though, they executed their zone offense better than they had all season. They shot 10-of-19, after that 2-of-12 start. Washington's interior defense has been awful since Romar dismissed rim-protecting behemoth Robert Upshaw from the team, and the Huskies had no one to contain Colorado inside.
"We've faced the zone a lot tonight," Buffs coach Tad Boyle said. "We were a little slow to start, but we started to get the ball inside, both to the high-post and to the baseline area which is what we want to do against that zone, and we did a pretty good job of it. We had pretty good ball movement, and good patience."
Scott was unstoppable — he worked the baseline, which is a weak spot in a 2-3 zone, with patience, and got open looks off of his teammates' feeds. He was 9-of-12 from the field in one of the most efficient games of his career.
"I got some treatment on Monday that really help my back out and so I'm feeling better than I've ever felt in a while," Scott said. "So, that's part of the reason why that happened."
Scott's dominance opened perimeter shots for Colorado; the Buffs shot only 21 percent from deep, but they hit when they needed to. Once, they fed Scott in the post, then he passed out to Dom Collier and Collier, Askia Booker and Xavier Talton snapped the ball from side to side until Talton buried a trey.
Colorado took a 30-17 lead into the half on the back of Scott's performance, then almost choked it away after the break. The Huskies made their first six shots after the break — Andrews hit three straight threes and Washington got as close as six points. But Johnson and Talton answered Andrews from deep and the Buffs kept the lead at double digits for most of the second half.
"It's just like, 'Holy cow guys,' we have to do a better job and be a little bit more alert," Boyle said. "I just think sometimes, our team has a tendency to relax a little bit when we have a lead. Fortunately we were scoring on our end, so we were trading baskets with them and the lead didn't shrink too much."
The Huskies' defense cratered in the second half; Colorado shot 52 percent and got to the rim at will. Johnson posterized Dierickx with a two-handed hammer off of a feed from Wes Gordon, and Jaron Hopkins had two open baseline dunks. Gordon played a nice game — he had three rebounds, three blocks and three assists, but he didn't attempt a shot.
"We get the ball to Wesley in the high post and he's a good passer, he's a willing passer, he likes to pass," Boyle said. "But, I tell you what, Wesley is a very unselfish player and he's a guy that we want to be aggressive and I don't like it when he is 0-for-0. I want him to look at the basket and be a threat."
That may be splitting hairs after a 17-point road win, but Colorado needs to nitpick every flaw at this point of the year, not for Saturday's finale against Washington State (4:30 p.m., MST, Pac-12 Network), but for the Pac-12 Tournament. The Buffs are guaranteed one game next week. Beyond that, their fate is in their hands.
