Buffs Hope To Continue Recent Success On UCLA's Home Floor
January 29, 2020 | Men's Basketball, Neill Woelk
LOS ANGELES — It's separation time in college basketball, that time of the year when contenders move to the front of the pack and pretenders begin to fall by the wayside.
Tad Boyle's 20th-ranked Colorado Buffaloes (16-4 overall, 5-2 Pac-12) can take a big step toward cementing themselves as members of that first group this weekend when they head to Los Angeles for a pair of games that will mark the halfway point of the conference season.
CU opens the trip Thursday with a 9 p.m. (MT)Â game vs. UCLA at Pauley Pavilion (ESPN2), followed by an 8:30 p.m. (MT) matchup Saturday against USC at the Galen Center (FS1).
The Buffs currently sit just a half-game out of first place in the Pac-12, right behind Oregon (17-4, 6-2) and tied with USC (16-4, 5-2). Overall, there are six conference teams within one game of the Ducks in the loss column.
It means Saturday's game against the Trojans will be one of the league's marquee matchups of the weekend — but the Buffs must first address business against the Bruins.
"We're not going to overlook anybody, I promise you that," Boyle said earlier this week. "I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure that doesn't happen. I think our players are mature enough to not let that happen, either."
The Bruins (10-10, 3-4) are still trying to find their footing under new head coach Mick Cronin, but there is no doubt they are a talented team. They own a pair of Pac-12 road wins (Washington and Oregon State), but are just 1-2 in home conference games.
UCLA is led by 6-foot-9 junior guard Chris Smith, who averages 12.2 points and 5.2 rebounds per game, numbers that bump up to 14.3 and 6.7 in conference play. The Bruins also have a talented big man in 6-9, 245-pound forward Jalen Hill, who averages 10.0 points and 7.3 rebounds on the season.
But the Bruins are also turnover prone, with 102 in seven Pac-12 games, third-most in the conference. That includes 23 miscues in a 96-75 loss at Oregon last week that also saw UCLA draw a technical foul out of a timeout for having six players on the floor.
Still, Boyle said, they are a dangerous squad.
"They are a team that is extremely talented individually," Boyle said. "They've got some really good players. They're obviously adjusting to a new coach. I think their new coach is adjusting to them, and there's some growing pains there. But we've got great respect for that program, obviously, and what it represents."
The Buffs have swept the season series with the Bruins each of the last two years, with last year's win part of a road trip sweep in Los Angeles, one of only two in CU's nine years in the Pac-12.
"They've got the home-court advantage," CU point guard McKinley Wright IV said. "We have to go in there and execute the game plan. Defense and rebounding is going to travel with us. As long we've got that, that's all that really matters."
CU played well in both departments in home wins last week over Washington and Washington State. The Buffs held WSU to just 37.3 percent shooting in a 78-56 win while also collecting a 45-28 edge on the boards. The story was much the same in a 76-62 win over Washington, when Colorado held the Huskies to 41.8 percent shooting while winning the rebound battle, 40-31.
But earlier this week, Boyle was less than pleased after what he called a "poor" practice on Tuesday.
"We have to be dialed in and ready to go mentally every single day," Boyle said. "That's going to be my challenge with this team, is to keep them on edge. Keep them hungry, and hopefully competing for a Pac-12 championship will motivate them them internally. But if it doesn't, I have to do a good job of making sure we're ready to play every single night."
Since entering the Pac-12 in the 2011-12 season, Colorado has swept just two road trips. The first came in 2012-13, when CU won at both Oregon schools. The second came last year, when Colorado won at USC and UCLA.
"This Colorado basketball team, the way we're built and the way we compete, we have a chance to win every time we step on the floor," Boyle said. "As a coach, that's a good feeling. That's that's a good place to start. Now, we've got to figure out is what is it going to take to get that done."
This weekend is the first of three remaining two-game road trips for the Buffs, with the next a jaunt through Oregon in mid-February before a trip to Cal and Stanford later in the month.
Colorado then closes out the regular season with a one-game trip to Utah on March 7.
ASSIST CHASE: Wright is now third on CU's all-time assist list with 445, trailing No. 2 Mike Reid (1982-86) by just one. Number one on the list, however, is still a ways off, as the spot is held by Jay Humphries (1980-84), who had 562 assists in his CU career.
Wright does, however, already hold the CU record for most points-assists double-doubles with seven, and his seven games with double-figure assists also ties him with Humprhies for the most in school history.
REBOUND CHARTS: Buffs junior Tyler Bey is just eight rebounds away from becoming the 13th player in CU history with at least 700 rebounds. With 692, he is 13th on the all-time list, and with a good weekend, could catch No. 12 Xavier Johnson (705) and David Harrison (707).
FOUR IN A ROW: Four Buffs — Wright, Bey, D'Shawn Schwartz and Lucas Siewert — have played in the four straight wins over UCLA. Bey is averaging 12.5 points and eight rebounds in his four career games against the Bruins while Wright is averaging nearly nine points, 4.5 rebounds and seven assists per game against UCLA.
TIPOFF: The game is set to begin at 9 p.m. at Pauley Pavilion.
THE SERIES: UCLA holds an all-time 11-6 lead in the series, including 8-2 on the Bruins' home floor. But the Buffs have won the last four against UCLA, including two in Los Angeles.
BROADCAST: The game will be televised by ESPN2 with Dave Feldman and Corey Williams on the call. The radio broadcast will be carried by 850 AM and 94.1 FM KOA, with Voice of the Buffs Mark Johnson and Scott Wilke.
UP NEXT:Â The Buffs wrap up the road trip Saturday with an 8:30 p.m. game vs. USC at the Galen Center (FS1), then return home next week for a pair. Colorado hosts Cal on Feb. 6 at the Events Center (6 p.m.), then plays host to Stanford on Feb. 8 (4 p.m.).
Contact: Neill.Woelk@Colorado.edu
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