Colorado
Oregon State
Buffs Fall To Oregon State At Home, 76-74
January 31, 2019 | Men's Basketball, Neill Woelk
BOULDER — Once again, the Colorado Buffaloes couldn't quite finish what they started.
One game after allowing a second-half lead to melt away at Stanford, the Buffs did the same on their home floor Thursday in a 76-74 loss to Oregon State. Colorado led by nine late in the first half and still held a five-point cushion at intermission, but the Beavers hit 56 percent of their shots after the half to come away with the win.
The loss, CU's eighth in its last 11 games, dropped the Buffs to 11-9 overall and 2-6 in Pac-12 play while the Beavers improved to 13-7, 5-3.
"Same story, different game," head coach Tad Boyle said. "Same story that happened at Stanford. We were in Palo Alto, now we're in Boulder. We weren't good enough in the second half."
Sophomore McKinley Wright IV led CU with 18 points, freshman Evan Battey added 16 and junior Shane Gatling scored 15. Stevie Thompson Jr. led OSU with 21.
Along with shooting 56 percent after halftime, the Beavers also held Colorado to just 40 percent shooting in the second half (10-for-25). The Buffs also hurt themselves by hitting just 16 of their 26 free throw attempts.
HOW IT HAPPENED: The Buffs put together a solid first half, breaking open a tie game with five minutes to go in the half with a 9-0 run to take a 34-25 lead. The Colorado run was spurred by CU's bench, with Battey getting two of his first-half 10 points in the surge and freshman guard Daylen Kountz scoring five straight points.
But instead of extending the margin for the rest of the half, the Buffs allowed OSU to cut the cushion almost in half by intermission, then completely erase the lead in the first three minutes of the second half. The Beavers hit six of their first seven shots of the half and scored on their first six possessions, with an EthanThompson 3-pointer giving them a 48-47 lead with 16:10 to play.
"There was a stretch at the end of the first half when they scored on four straight possessions and then the first six or seven possessions of the second half they got layups," Boyle said. "Layup after layup after layup. Our defense just went south."
The Buffs played much of the second half without starter Tyler Bey, who played 11 minutes in the first half but just seven after halftime. Bey finished with just four points and four rebound, his second-lowest rebound total of the season.
"I just didn't think Tyler was giving us much tonight," Boyle said. "He's a good player, but I thought defensively and rebounding he wasn't the same Tyler Bey I've expected to see and we've expected to see. … I love Tyler Bey. I'm not down on Tyler. I just think he's got to understand that he has to bring it every single game, every single possession."
After OSU regained the lead four minutes into the half, the game see-sawed back and forth, with the two teams trading the lead 10 times over the next 15 minutes as well as a half-dozen ties.
OSU finally took the lead for good, 71-69, with 1:00 on the clock on a pair of Gligorije Rakocevic free throws. Wright then turned the ball over on CU's next possession and the Beavers hit five free throws down the stretch to clinch the win as Colorado also missed shots on each of its ensuing possessions.
"McKinley's our guy," Boyle said. "He's 6-for-7 from the field. He's the heart of this team. He's a warrior. It's an inopportune turnover, but I'm going to battle with that guy. You have live with it and he's got to learn from it and hopefully not let it happen again."
Wright did hit a 3-pointer with 1.8 seconds remaining to pull Colorado within one, 75-74, but Thompson hit another free throw and a last-second heave at the buzzer was off the mark.
TURNING POINT: The game wasn't decided until the final minute, when the Beavers hit seven free throws and the Buffs came up empty on three straight possessions.
WHAT IT MEANS: Now with two conference losses at home, the Buffs have to bounce back in a hurry, beginning with Saturday's home game vs. Oregon.
KEY STATISTICS: The Beavers shot 56 percent in the second half while Colorado hit just 40 percent of its field goal tries. Colorado also missed 10 free throws (16-for-26), and the Beavers held a 14-7 edge in points off turnovers. CU committed just 11 turnovers, but had eight in the second half.
NOTEWORTHY: Battey's 16 points were his best in Pac-12 play and two off his career high of 18 against San Diego. … Lucas Siewert had eight rebounds, matching his bet in conference play. … Wright's 18 points was the sixth time he has led Colorado in scoring this season. … Gatling scored in double figures for the fourth straight game, a stretch in which he is average 14.8 points.
QUOTEWORTHY: "The one thing I told our team, the beautiful thing about college basketball is a lot of people count people out in certainly January and February. People are counting out the Buffaloes and I understand why. But our job is to prove those people wrong and continue to improve every day and try to figure out how to win our next game. If we can get on a roll, which we're fully capable of doing, we can make some noise in this league coming down the stretch." — CU head coach Tad Boyle
"I think that when we're up at halftime the other team wants it more than we do because they're down. We have to come out and play like we're 10 down at the half. We have to play like we're losing, and right now it feels like the other team wants it more than us in the second half. It can't be that way." — CU guard Shane Gatling
NEXT UP: The Buffs wrap up a two-game homestand Saturday with a 7:30 p.m. game against Oregon at the CU Events Center.
Contact: Neill.Woelk@Colorado.edu
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