Buffs Set For Noon Tipoff With Huskies

BOULDER — It is the time of year when every win is a good win and every loss is a potential resume´ killer.

All games may technically count the same, but in February, the importance of every contest is somehow magnified.

“When you're a team like us that's chasing an NCAA Tournament bid, you'd like to get in that top four and get a first-round bye in the conference tournament, every game becomes really, really important — especially when we've dropped a couple,” Colorado head coach Tad Boyle said Friday afternoon. “Utah and Oregon State come to mind. You don't get those back. So you'd better get the next one.”

The next one for the 18-7 Buffs (7-5 Pac-12) comes at noon Saturday, when they play host to Washington (15-9, 7-5) at the Coors Events Center (Pac-12 Networks). The Buffs, Huskies and Utah are currently in a three-way tie for fourth in the Pac-12 standings, meaning the Buffs have an opportunity to break up the logjam.

It won't be easy. The Huskies handled the Buffs with relative ease in their first meeting, collecting a 95-83 win in a game Washington led by as much as 22 in the second half.

While Washington is coming off a 90-82 loss to Utah on Wednesday, they've been in Boulder since Thursday and should be fresh for Saturday's game.

The Buffs, though, have just one day to recover from their draining 88-81 double-overtime win against Washington State on Thursday. A number of Buffs played career-high minutes vs. the Cougars, including Wesley Gordon (45), Xavier Talton (44), George King (41), Thomas Akyazili (38) and Josh Fortune (34).

Thus, the Buffs had a “concentration” day on Friday, one in which they studied the Washington scouting report, shot a few free throws and walked through their game plan.

“The guys won't break a sweat unless they want to,” Boyle said before the light workout. “Today is a concentration day of dialing into what we need to do to try to beat Washington. Washington State is behind us. We don't have the luxury of dissecting and analyzing that game. It's about moving forward.”

Boyle, though, said he's not worried about his team having dead legs.

“Our legs will be fine,” Boyle said. “These kids are young. Now if I had them out there running sprints and getting up and down the floor for two hours, our legs might be a little heavy. I'm taking that one out of the equation. I'm going to make sure their legs are fresh; they've got to make sure their minds are fresh.”

The Huskies have been one of the conference's better teams on the road, currently sporting a 3-3 record away from home in Pac-12 play. Leading scorer Andrew Andrews, who sits atop the Pac-12 charts with a 20.6 points per game average, tallied 33 in the Huskies' win earlier this year. But also doing plenty of damage were Dejounte Murray and Marquese Chriss, two of UW's four starting freshman. Murray and Chriss both had 17 points in UW's win over the Buffs, a game in which CU also committed 12 first-half turnovers that led to 16 Washington points.

Another factor in the game was blocked shots. The Huskies swatted away 15 CU attempts, with Malik Dime recording seven and Chriss collecting five.

“The key against Washington is you have to guard and you have to keep them off the boards,” Boyle said. “You've got to box them out because you cannot give them second-chance opportunities, and you have to take care of the ball. They're a very athletic team, very active. You turn it over and it turns into dunks pretty quick.”

The Buffs did a much better job in the turnover department in their win over Washington State, finishing with just eight miscues — a far cry from the 24 they had in their previous outing against Oregon State.

CU also had balanced scoring against the Cougars, something that was needed with leading scorer and rebounder Josh Scott on the bench with an ankle injury. King finished with 21 points, Gordon added 15, Talton had 13, Fortune finished with 11 and Akyazili had 10.

That the Buffs managed to scratch out a win with Scott out, Tre'Shaun Fletcher playing just six minutes because of an ankle injury and Dominique Collier playing only 14 minutes because of foul trouble was a good sign, Boyle said.

“Some guys stepped up,” Boyle said. “That's a good thing. You've got to figure out a way to win when you're not at your best and we did that.”

Boyle said Scott and Fletcher both continue to improve and “are getting better every day.”

BROADCAST: The game will be televised by the Pac-12 Networks with Rich Cellini and Matt Muehlebach. The radio broadcast will be carried by 850 AM KOA with Mark Johnson and Scott Wilke.

Contact: Neill.Woelk@Colorado.edu