Colorado University Athletics
Buffs Aim To End Skid At Stanford On Sunday
February 29, 2020 | Men's Basketball, Neill Woelk
STANFORD, Calif. — Basketball coaches and players are fond of saying "defense travels."
But for whatever reason, the No. 21/20 Colorado Buffaloes didn't have defense in their travel bags for their last outing, a 76-62 loss at Cal on Thursday.
Now the Buffs (21-8 overall, 10-6 Pac-12) need to make sure they pack their defense for Sunday's 4 p.m. game at Stanford (19-9, 8-7), where they are in need of a win not only to end a two-game skid, but also remain in the hunt for a top-four Pac-12 finish.
The game will be televised by ESPNU and broadcast by 760 AM and 93.7 FM KOA.
Defense has always been a foundational cornerstone for Tad Boyle's Buffaloes. But over the last three games, the Buffs have allowed each opponent to shoot at least 45 percent from the floor, something that has happened only once previously this season.
The result in both three-game stretches has been a 1-2 record.
Stanford is not a particularly high-scoring team, currently just fifth in the Pac-12 in scoring in league games (68.53 points per game). But the Cardinal is also the league's top defensive team, allowing just 64.07 points per Pac-12 game, and the conference's best shooting team, hitting .460 from the floor.
"They run their offense at a pace that's unlike a lot of offenses," CU's Boyle said Saturday. "They really, really move the ball and they move their bodies at a high rate. We have to be dialed in and locked in to our game plan and our execution of that game plan."
In their first meeting this year, Colorado took an 81-74 win over Stanford in Boulder in early February. The Buffs had a solid offensive game in the win, hitting nearly 50 percent of their field goal tries (20-for-41), including an 11-for-21 day from 3-point range. But Stanford was also on target from long distance, hitting 12 of its 21 tries. CU needed every bit of its offense to win that encounter, as the Buffs shot poorly early and had to overcome an early 16-point deficit.
In the first game, the Cardinal did not have the services of guard Bryce Wills, and the junior is questionable again for Sunday's game with an ankle injury. But the Cardinal will have big man Oscar da Silva, their leading scorer and rebounder. Da Silva was injured in the second half of the first game in a collision with CU's Evan Battey and was not on the floor when the Buffs made a key second-half run.
After a red-hot 15-2 start that included four straight Pac-12 wins to open league play, the Cardinal cooled off. But after a four-game losing streak in early February, Stanford has rebounded with three straight wins, and is still in strong contention for an NCAA Tournament berth.
Thus, the Buffs will need to be at their best. That means along with improved defense, they can't afford to have a repeat of their offensive performance from Thursday, when they shot just 6-for-29 from beyond the arc.
Rather, they will need the balance they displayed against Stanford in their first meeting, when McKinley Wright IV had 21 for CU (15 in the second half), D'Shawn Schwartz added 20 (also 15 in the second half) and Tyler Bey had an 11-point, 12-rebound double-double.
But perhaps most importantly, the Buffs need to play with a little more energy and sense of urgency than they had Thursday, which came on the heels of two sub-par practices in Boulder.
"We had good energy," Boyle said of the Buffs' workouts on Friday and Saturday. "Certainly a better practice today than we had in Boulder.
TIPOFF: Thursday's game is set to begin at 4 p.m. (MT) at Maples Pavilion.
THE SERIES: Colorado holds an all-time 13-10 edge, with 10 wins in the last 11. Stanford's last win came last season on the Cardinal's home court, where Stanford has a 5-4 all-time edge.
BROADCAST: The game will be televised by ESPNU with Roxy Bernstein and Corey Williams. The radio broadcast will be carried by 760 AM and 93.7 FM KOA with Voice of the Buffs Mark Johnson and Scott Wilke.
UP NEXT:Â The Buffs close the regular season with a 12:30 p.m. game next Saturday at Utah. After that, it's the March 11-14 Pac-12 tournament in Las Vegas.Â
Contact: Neill.Woelk@Colorado.edu
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