Buffs Aim For Road Win To Open Pac-12 Play

CORVALLIS, Ore. — It's been a while since the Colorado Buffaloes last won a road game.

In fact, it's been nearly 11 months since Tad Boyle's Buffs collected a 60-52 win at Oregon State.

Friday night, the 8-4 Buffs will return to OSU's Gill Coliseum — and they would like nothing better than to open Pac-12 play with their first road win of the season against the 8-4 Beavers.

Tipoff is set for 9 p.m., with ESPNU carrying the telecast and KOA 850 AM the radio broadcast. CU will then finish its road trip Sunday with an 8 p.m. game at Oregon (Pac-12 Network).

To get their first road win, the Buffs know they will have to play better than they have on opponents' home floors to this point. CU is 0-2 in true road games thus far, and also lost its last "neutral-court" game, last week's contest against Iowa in front of a highly partisan Hawkeyes crowd in Sioux Falls, S.D.

Now, the non-conference schedule is a thing of the past and the Buffs are entering what Boyle calls the second season — conference play — against an Oregon State team that is 7-1 on its home floor this season.

"We have to grow to the level of competition in the Pac-12," Boyle said earlier this week. "We're fully capable of doing that, there's no doubt about that, but it's not going to be easy. We're going to have to change the way we play … I'm not talking about style of play, but we're going to have change how we execute, how we rebound, how we defend, how tough we play, how many 50-50 balls we get. We're going to have to change our level of play to be successful in the Pac-12. If we don't, we're looking at a bottom-half finish."

Of course, a bottom-half finish — ninth, to be exact — is where the Buffs were picked to finish in the Pac-12's annual preseason poll. Media members voting in the poll saw a young team that lost four seniors from a year ago, and so far the Buffs have played that way: a young team that has shown flashes of outstanding play, but one that has yet to put together long stretches of consistent, high-level effort.

What might be most surprising about the Buffs so far is that the most consistent player is one of the youngest — point guard McKinley Wright IV. The true freshman leads CU in scoring (17.0 ppg), assists (4.7 apg) and steals (1.3 spg) and is second on the team in rebounding (5.2 rpg). He is also the only Buff with at least 50 shot attempts to shoot better than 50 percent from the floor (74-for-146) and the only Buff to hit more than 40 percent of his 3-point tries (16-for-39).

What the Buffs will need in conference play is for their upperclassmen — seniors George King and Dominique Collier and junior Namon Wright — to step up and become more consistent on a night-in, night-out basis. For King and Collier, this is their last run through the Pac-12.

"One of the reasons you come here is to play in a great league," King said. "You want to take advantage of that opportunity, and I think that does mean a little bit more now because this is my last year. But my goal has always been to leave this program better than I found it, and I think we have a great chance to do this in the next 18 games."

The Buffs will face a veteran Oregon State team that had a six-game win streak snapped by Kent State in its last non-conference outing. The Beavers are led by forwards Tres Tinkle (son of head coach Wayne Tinkle) and Drew Eubanks, and the Thompson brothers, guards Stephen and Ethan. Tinkle is averaging 18.2 points and 7.2 rebounds per game while the 6-foot-10 Eubanks is scoring at a 14.6 clip while also averaging 6.6 rebounds. Stephen Thompson has a 16.3 scoring average and Ethan Thompson is the fourth Beaver in double-digits, averaging 10.3 points.

"Those four guys give you problems," Boyle said. "They can score a lot of different ways. They've struggled shooting the ball from 3 as a team, but they're capable. They're a lot like us in terms of their inconsistency. … But those four players are terrific and they've got some other guys that are coming off the bench that are tough. It's going to be great challenge for us."

The Buffs have indeed been inconsistent from long range this year. King — who led the Pac-12 in 3-point percentage two seasons ago, hitting more than 45 percent of his attempts — is shooting just 34.7 percent from long range this year (17-for-49). Namon Wright has hit just 29.7 percent of his 3-point tries (11-for-37) while Collier is just 10-for-40.

But the biggest key, Boyle said, will be for the upperclassmen to make sure CU's freshmen know what they will be facing on the road in conference play.

"The freshmen don't know what they don't know. They've never played at Oregon State, they've never played Oregon, they've never played any of these teams we're about to play," Boyle said. "It's really incumbent upon our veteran guys to let the young guys know and show the young guys what it takes to be successful once you get into conference play."

THE SERIES: Colorado holds a 14-6 all-time series lead, including a sweep last year, with the Buffs winning 85-78 in Boulder in late January and 60-52 in Corvallis in mid-February. CU has won eight of 12 against the Beavers since joining the Pac-12 in 2011. OSU holds a 5-3 edge in Corvallis. Boyle is 9-6 against the Beavers as a head coach while OSU's Wayne Tinkle is 2-4 against Colorado. This will be the only regular season meeting between the two teams this year.

BROADCAST: Friday's game will be televised by ESPNU with Steve Quis and Corey Williams. KOA 850 AM will carry the radio broadcast with Mark Johnson and Scott Wilke.

Live statistics will be available on CUBuffs.com.

Contact: Neill.Woelk@Colorado.edu