Colorado
14-10,6-6Pac-12
California
8-17, 2-10Pac-12
Freshman Wright Boosts Buffs Past Cal
February 07, 2018 | Men's Basketball, Neill Woelk
BOULDER — On a night when the Colorado Buffaloes struggled in almost every department, they still had freshman point guard McKinley Wright IV.
That was enough — barely. Wright, who the Buffs weren't sure would play after suffering an injury in Tuesday's practice, scored a team-high 17 points and added six rebounds and five assists Wednesday to lead the Buffs to a 68-64 win over Cal at the Coors Events Center.
The Buffs survived a 19-turnover night — 13 in the first half — and 18 offensive rebounds by the Bears to improve to 14-10 overall and 6-6 in Pac-12 play. Cal dropped to 8-16, 2-9.
Despite the win, CU's second in a row in a key three-game homestand, Buffs coach Tad Boyle was not happy with the effort.
"Thank god we won," said Boyle, who opened his press conference by thanking the fans who attended the 9 p.m. tipoff — and then apologizing to those fans. "I can't remember a time in my coaching career when I've been this disappointed after a win in terms of our performance, the way we approached this game, especially after we really did a great job against Utah in terms of our effort, our energy, our toughness. Tonight we turned the ball over 19 times and we give them 18 offensive rebounds. Thank god we won, and we won for one reason. That's No. 25 (Wright) for the Buffs."
Wright almost didn't play Wednesday after an injury in Tuesday's practice required him to be helped from the floor. But after an examination didn't reveal any serious damage, he decided to give it a go against the Bears. He shot just 3-for-7 from the field, but had 11 points from the free throw line. He scored eight of his points in the final 1:49, including a drive to the hoop that gave Colorado a six-point edge and six free throws in the final minute to help hold the Bears at bay.
D'Shwawn Schwartz, Dominique Collier and Dallas Walton all chipped in eight points apiece for Colorado.
Kingsley Okoroh led Cal with 12 points, most coming on second-chance points after offensive rebounds. The Bears finished with 18 second-chance points, but the Buffs did do a stellar job on Cal freshman Justice Sueing. The Bears' leading scorer finished with just six points on 1-for-15 shooting.
"We dodged a bullet," Boyle said. "You give a team 18 offensive rebounds, they're going to convert those to points and baskets better than Cal did tonight. Washington came in here and got 18 offensive rebounds and hung a loss on us. Thank god we weren't playing Washington tonight."
HOW IT HAPPENED: After going into halftime tied at 28-28, the Buffs briefly looked ready to take control and put the game away early in the second half with a 10-0 run. Lucas Siewert, George King and Collier all hit 3-pointers in the surge and Colorado led 38-31 just four minutes into the half.
But the Bears slowly chipped away at Colorado's lead, cutting the margin to one at 38-37 before the Buffs pushed the margin back to seven on six straight points from Schwartz.
"That felt good," Schwartz said. "Just trying to find and pick my spots where I can go score."
Still, Cal refused to go away, pulling to within one again with just 4:41 to go on an Okoroh second-chance bucket, cutting CU's edge to 52-51.
But the Buffs answered with a Wright coast-to-coast bucket, then got a 15-footer from Schwartz with 2:33 to go to push the lead back to five. Cal cut it back to three on another Okoroh tip-in, but Wright scored again on another drive to give Colorado a 58-53 lead with 1:49 to play.
CU then forced an empty Cal possession before two free throws from Wright gave the Buffs a six-point lead with 50 seconds to go. The Bears hit three 3-pointers in the final minute but Colorado maintained its edge at the free throw line with Wright hitting six from the stripe and George King a pair. Lazar Nikolic added CU's final points on a slam dunk off an assist from Wright.
Along with his eight points, Walton had seven rebounds and George King had five rebounds to go with seven points.
"I just called the guys together (at halftime) and told them the younger guys are playing for the seniors," Wright said. "We're trying our best to get them to the (NCAA) tournament and we know if we had lost this game tonight there would be a slim chance at that."
Particularly disappointing to Boyle was that the Buffs were coming off one of their better performances of the year, last week's win over Utah. Next, the Buffs will complete their homestand Sunday against Stanford, currently 13-10 overall and 7-4 in the Pac-12 heading into Thursday night's game at Utah.
Boyle knows the Buffs can't have a similar effort against the Cardinal and expect to win.
"We'd better bring our hard hats," Boyle said. "If we play Sunday the way we played tonight, we have no chance. Zero chance. We play the way we played against Utah in terms of our energy, effort and toughness, we give ourselves a chance. Players have to understand that."
TURNING POINT: The Buffs didn't put this one away until the final minutes. After Cal had pulled to within one, 52-51, with 4:41 to go, Wright drove coast-to-coast for a layup and 3-point lead before Schwartz hit a pump-fake jumper to bump the margin to five with 2:33 to play. The Bears never came closer than two again.
WHAT IT MEANS: Despite it not being a pretty win, the victory still pulled the Buffs back to .500 in Pac-12 play at 6-6 and kept their hopes alive of moving up into a top-four finish in the conference standings.
CU STANDOUTS: McKinley Wright had a game-high 17 points along with six rebounds and five assists. … D'Shawn Schwartz had eight points and two rebounds. … Dom Collier had eight points, two rebounds and two assists. … Dallas Walton had eight points, seven rebounds and two blocked shots.
KEY STATISTICS: The Buffs held the Bears to just 36.7 percent shooting from the field (22-for-60), including 5-for-16 from 3-point range. Colorado has now held its last two opponents to a combined 36 percent from the field.
QUOTEWORTHY: "Toughness, hard will, grit. All the intangibles make McKinley Wright who he is. … The intangibles he brings to the game and the team you can't put a value on. I said this before the season started: McKinley Wright will this team — will them — to four or five victories this season. You just saw one of them. He willed us to a victory tonight. And thank god we had him. If we didn't have him, we'd be leaving here with a loss and Cal would be feeling really good about themselves." — CU coach Tad Boyle
"Our leaders — me, George, Dom — have to do a better job. Before the game, I think shootaround was pretty dead. We knew Cal was at the bottom of our league and to be honest we took them lightly. We came out flat and they had nothing to lose. … Our energy was terrible. We have to do better." — McKinley Wright
NEXT UP: The Buffs play host to Stanford on Sunday in a 2 p.m. game at the Events Center (Pac-12 Networks), then hit the road next week for a pair of games, playing at Washington State on Thursday (9 p.m.) and at Washington on Saturday (6 p.m.).
Contact: Neill.Woelk@Colorado.edu
