Buffs Grind Out Win Over Bears
February 06, 2020 | Men's Basketball, Neill Woelk
BOULDER — It may not have been pretty, but the end result for the Colorado Buffaloes here Thursday was what they needed — a 71-65 win over Cal at the CU Events Center.
The victory, sparked by Tyler Bey's 21-point, 10-rebound double-double, improved the 24th ranked Buffs to 18-5 overall and 7-3 in Pac-12 play, while the Bears — who have yet to win away from home this year — fell to 10-12, 4-5.
The win also lifted the Buffs into a tie with Oregon atop the Pac-12 standings.
The Buffs led for more than half the game, but could never put the Bears away until the end. Colorado actually trailed by one, 46-45, with 8:04 to play before finally taking the lead for good down the stretch, thanks to 3-pointers from Bey, Shane Gatling and McKinley Wright IV.
Along with Bey's eighth double-double of the season (27th career), the Buffs also got 17 points, six rebounds and four assists from Wright, and 14 points, four assists and three rebounds from Schwartz. Gatling added 10Â points and four assists.
Matt Bradley led the Bears with 17 points.
Cal finished the game shooting 55.6 percent from the floor (25-for-45) — the best shooting percentage by a CU opponent this season. The Buffs were 24-for-50, including 13-for-22 in the second half. CU held a comfortable 32-23 edge on the boards and hit 16 of 24 free throws while the Bears were 8-for-17 from the line.
"Not the prettiest win," CU coach Tad Boyle said. "It reminded me of wins we had in November and December, when we weren't very good but we found a way to win the game. We've certainly gotten better since then. The sign of a somber locker room after a league win tells us that we have pretty high expectations of ourselves."
HOW IT HAPPENED: The Buffs were indeed not at their best, allowing Cal to hit its first six shots of the night as the Bears jumped out to a 15-11 lead. After a stretch that saw the Buffs miss seven straight field goal tries, they finally found the bottom of the net and managed to take a 28-28 tie into the locker room at intermission.
While the Buffs were just 11-for-28 from the floor in the first half, the Bears were 12-for-19.
"Our first-half defense was terrible," Wright said. "That's an area we have to be more locked in."
Colorado threatened to pull away early in the second half, using an 8-0 run to take a 36-31 lead just five minutes in. Bey led the surge with six straight points and Schwartz finished it with an alley-oop dunk off a feed from Gatling. Less than a minute later, Schwartz drained a 3-pointer off another Gatling assist and CU held a six-point edge, 39-33, with 15:07 to play.
But the Buffs couldn't put the Bears away. Cal slowly chipped away at the lead while the Buffs hit a stretch of costly turnovers, and with just more than eight minutes to play, the Bears took a 46-45 lead when a Bradley drive capped a 6-0 run.
"One stat we chart — we call them kills — is when you get three (defensive) stops in a row," Boyle said. "Our goal as a program is to get three of those a half and in some of our games this year, we've had in excess of that. But tonight we had one each half. You can't separate yourself because you can't get multiple stops in a row. And that's why we couldn't pull away from Cal. We tried a couple times, but then we couldn't get stops and they'd come down and score four to five times and we couldn't separate."
But when they needed it most, the Buffs found their offense and just enough defense to regain control over the last six minutes. A Bey 3-pointer gave CU a 52-47 edge with 5:47 to go and a Wright 3-pointer with 3:00 on the clock gave the Buffs a 6-point cushion, 58-52.Â
One minute later, Schwartz hammered home another dunk despite being mugged by D.J. Thorpe on the way up. His ensuing free throw gave Colorado a 61-54 edge, which was followed by a Wright offensive rebound and putback to give CU a nine-point lead, 63-54, with just over a minute to play. CU then held Cal at bay down the stretch with free throws to collect the win.
"There were six seconds left on the shot clock and I was wide open," Schwartz said. "Shane found me and I had to make sure I made a play there."
The Buffs were no doubt frustrated for much of the night by Cal's game plan, which was to eliminate CU's transition game. The Bears finished with just two offensive rebounds, and walked the ball up the floor after every CU basket in an attempt to milk the clock and shorten the game.
"When they slow the game down, is it hard not to kind of get bogged down and you can't let it frustrate you," Boyle said. "It's really hard to get in transition when you're taking the ball out of the net. So even though you may not score and get in transition, you can get the pace of the game going by getting stops. You have to be able to make plays at this time of the year"
After shooting just 2-for-13 from 3-point range in the first half, the Buffs hit five of their 11 long-distance attempts after halftime.
BUFFS BITS: Gatling now has 12 assists and just five turnovers in his last four games … Bey's 10 rebounds gave him his first double-digit game on the boards in his last six. He moved into ninth on CU's all-time rebound list with 717, as he passed Larry Vaculik and Burdette Haldorson. His 21 points were a season high … Lucas Siewert finished with just one point — a season low — but still had four rebounds and an assist ... Schwartz's four assists were a season high and matched his career high. Gatling, meanwhile, had three of his assists on Schwartz baskets. "We had a symbiotic relationship," Schwartz said.
TURNING POINT: After the Bears took their last lead of the game with just more than eight minutes to play, CU used a 10-4 run to regain control and Cal never came closer than three again.
WHAT IT MEANS: The win lifted the Buffs into a tie with Oregon for the Pac-12 lead.
KEY STATISTICS: Colorado shot 59.1 percent from the field in the second half (13-for-22), including 5-for-11 from 3-point range … The Buffs held a 32-23 rebound lead, which led to a 10-3 edge in second-chance points … Colorado also hit 16 of 24 free throws while the Bears were 8-for-17 from the line.
QUOTEWORTHY: "We have to protect our home floor. We better be better against Stanford than we were today. It's a dangerous dangerous game because they're another well-coached, good basketball team with really good players." — CU head coach Tad Boyle
UP NEXT:Â The Buffs wrap up their homestand with a 4 p.m. game Saturday against Stanford, then hit the road for a pair next week, beginning with a Feb. 13 (Thursday) game at Oregon, followed by a Feb. 15 (Saturday) game at Oregon State.
Contact: Neill.Woelk@Colorado.edu
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