Buffs Focus On Consistency As They Prep For Visits From Washington Schools
January 20, 2020 | Men's Basketball, Neill Woelk
BOULDER — It's nitty-gritty time in the college basketball world.
Conference play is in full swing, and over the next seven weeks, championship contenders will begin to separate themselves from the pack.
The 23rd-ranked Colorado Buffaloes would like to be one of those teams when the dust settles and conference tournament play begins.
The Buffs — who dropped to No. 23 in Monday's latest Associated Press poll but maintained the No. 21 spot in the NET rankings — are coming off a 1-1 road trip that included a win at Arizona State and a loss at Arizona. Immediately ahead are two key home games, beginning with a Thursday matchup against Washington State (8 p.m., Pac-12 Networks), followed by a 7 p.m. game Saturday against Washington (7 p.m., FS1).
The Buffs (14-4 overall, 3-2 in Pac-12 play) not only want to bounce back from Saturday's disappointing 75-54 at Arizona, they are aiming to develop a level of consistency that will separate them from the pack over the last seven weeks of conference play.
"The teams in mid-January that don't get better — people are going to quit talking about them," coach Tad Boyle said after Monday's practice, one that had plenty of focus on rebounding. "To me you're either getting better or you're getting worse … Teams (that get worse) fade into the sunset in March. Teams that continue to get better in mid-January and the month of February — those are the teams that people are talking about in March. That's the team we need to be."
To do that, the Buffs will need to fix some rebounding woes that hounded them on their recent road trip. They managed to overcome a 42-40 deficit on the boards at Arizona State and come away with a 68-61 win, but they weren't so lucky at Arizona, where the Wildcats held a commanding 39-25 rebound edge.
"We've got to get our edge back, get our mentality back," Boyle said. "Tyler Bey is a great defensive rebounder, we all know that. Evan Battey battles on the boards. Lucas (Siewert) has become a better rebounder. But our guards needed to help us more than they did. We saw that in film."
Colorado's 25 rebounds against Arizona were the fewest by a CU team since the Buffs had 25 at Arizona two years ago. Bey, the league's leading rebounder, finished with a season-low four boards and Battey had just one. Siewert was CU's leading rebounder with seven, but Colorado's guards — McKinley Wright IV, Shane Gatling, Daylen Kountz, Eli Parquet and D'Shawn Schwartz — combined for just five.
"That doesn't mean that our bigs can't compete better because they can," Boyle said. "They got their tails kicked by Ira Lee and (Zeke) Nnaji. But our guards have to help us."
While every conference game is critical, the Buffs know that after their two home games this week, they finish with seven of their last 11 on the road. With one home conference loss already in the books (Oregon State), CU can ill afford another slip-up at the Events Center.
"We know the schedule favors us on the front end and does not favor us on the back end," Boyle said. "But to compete for a league championship, you have to hold serve at home and you have to win games on the road. You don't have to win every game, but you have to win games on the road. We've won one game on the road but we've lost one at home. That's not a recipe for competing for a league championship. That's a recipe for going 9-9. We're not interested in that."
It means taking care of business at home this week, then taking that momentum with them next week to Los Angeles, where they will play at UCLA (Jan. 30) and USC (Feb. 1).
"At some point, it's not just bouncing back, it's bouncing back and maintaining that level of consistency," Boyle said. "That's the challenge for this team."
IN THE POLLS: The Buffs dropped three places in the latest Associated Press poll, released Monday coming in at 23rd. They dropped out of the coaches' poll, slipping from 21st last week to first on the list of others receiving votes.
Still, it is the eighth week this season the Buffs have been in the AP top 25, the most since the 1996-97 Buffs were also ranked eight times that season.
Just two other Pac-12 teams were included in the top 25, with Oregon at 12/13 and Arizona at 22/21.
In the NET rankings, one of the tools used by the NCAA Selection Committee, the Buffs were at No. 21 Monday, the fourth-highest Pac-12 team. Arizona was the top Pac-12 team at No. 11, followed by Stanford (14), Oregon (16), Colorado (21), USC (46), Washington (47), ASU (62), Oregon State (67), Utah (80), Washington State (100), UCLA (138) and Cal (165).
The NET uses a "quadrant" system that measures the value of wins, and the Buffs are currently 3-2 in Quadrant 1 games, with wins over Oregon, Dayton and Arizona State and losses to Kansas and Arizona.
Contact: Neill.Woelk@Colorado.edu
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