Colorado
19-5,8-3Pac-12
Stanford
16-7,5-5Pac-12
Buffs Rally To Topple Stanford
February 08, 2020 | Men's Basketball, Neill Woelk
BOULDER — Colorado erased a dismal first half with a huge second-half comeback Saturday to collect an 81-74 win over Stanford at the CU Events Center, giving the Buffs sole possession of the Pac-12 lead.
CU's third straight win improved the Buffs to 19-5 overall — the best start in CU history after 24 games — and 8-3 in Pac-12 play, one game ahead of Oregon after the Ducks' loss at Oregon State on Saturday. Colorado plays at Oregon on Thursday.
Stanford dropped to 16-7, 5-5.
Colorado trailed 33-22 at the half and by 16 early in the second half, but outscored Stanford 59-41 after intermission for the win in front of 10,930. It was the second sellout of the season and the largest Events Center crowd since a February 2016 win over Arizona.Â
The game was halted for several minutes in the second half after a violent collision between CU's Evan Battey and Stanford's Oscar da Silva when Battey was driving to the basket. After a brief time on the floor, Battey walked to the bench under his own power, but da Silva's head crashed hard into the floor and he was motionless for several minutes. Da Silva was finally helped to the locker room and the Stanford Twitter account later said he had suffered a head laceration.
The Cardinal was not the same team without its star big man. Soon after his departure, the Buffs — who had trailed by as much as 16 early in the half — put together a 16-2 run to take their first lead since early in the game.
Stanford came back to momentarily take the lead again, but Colorado then broke away from a 56-56 tie with a decisive 7-0 run for a 63-56 lead with 6:28 remaining. The Buffs then slowly gained control down the stretch, finally pushing the lead into double digits in the last two minutes before Stanford closed the gap in the final minute.
The comeback from a 16-point deficit tied the 10th-largest in school history and tied the third-largest rally from a second-half deficit.
"A great win for Colorado basketball today," CU coach Tad Boyle said. "More importantly, our hearts go out to Oscar da Silva and his injury. I hope he's OK. I have great respect for Coach (Jerod) Haase and how he handled that and his team handled that and I'm proud of how our guys handled that. It was unfortunate, but injuries are part of the game. It was certainly nothing we tried to do."
Colorado was 14-for-20 from the floor in the second half, including 8-for-8 from 3-point range after going just 3-for-13 from beyond the arc in the first half. The Buffs also hit their last two 3-pointers of the first half, giving them 10 straight treys, a school record.
CU's McKinley Wright IV led all scorers with 21 points (15 in the second half), along with four assists, and D'Shawn Schwartz added 20 points — also 15 in the second half — and seven rebounds. Battey had 13 points and four assists and Tyler Bey recorded his second-straight double-double for the Buffs, his ninth of the season and 28th of his career, with 11 points and 12 rebounds. Bey had three rebounds and no points in the first half.
Jaiden Delaire led Stanford with 19 points.
"Stanford is a very, very good basketball team," Boyle said. "We beat a really good team — a short-handed team — but still a very, very good team."
HOW IT HAPPENED: Colorado struggled through a horrible shooting first half, hitting just six of its 21 field goal tries, including 3-for-13 from 3-point range. The Cardinal, meanwhile, shot 11-for-27, with five 3-pointers on 10 tries.
Stanford finished the half with a five-point possession with virtually no time on the clock. After CU's Eli Parquet was called for a foul just before the halftime buzzer, an irate Boyle drew a technical foul. Stanford's Tyrell Terry then hit both technical free throws and three regular free throws to put the Buffs in a 33-22 hole at intermission.Â
Colorado was also just 7-for-13 from the free throw line in the first half, including three misses on the front end of one-and-one situations.
"Coach got on us a little bit at halftime, but he told us we were going to win the game," Wright said. "He knew it was going to come down to stops and guarding the ball. Shots started falling."
Indeed, after falling behind by 16 early in the second half, the Buffs slowly began chipping away at the lead as they managed to put together some defensive stops and put the ball through the hoop.
After the injury to Da Silva, the Buffs manufactured a 16-2 run to take a 51-49 lead at the 10:10 mark. Lucas Siewert had two 3-pointers in the run, Wright and Schwartz each added one and Battey capped the run with a basket inside to give the Buffs their first lead since early in the game.
"In the timeouts, I kept telling the guys our shots will start falling," Boyle said. "They will. We're getting great looks. They're going to come and we have to dial in on the defensive end."
The Buffs did that as well, as Colorado forced seven empty Stanford possessions during the key 16-2 surge.
"We kept talking the only way we're going to get this thing shrunk is to get stops," Boyle said. "When we got the thing tied, I said, 'OK, now the only way we're going to get this thing to Colorado's advantage is to continue to get stops. You cannot trade baskets with teams and get ahead or come from behind. It's about getting stops and our guys did that in the second half when they needed to."
Stanford momentarily came back to take the lead, but the Buffs broke away from a 56-56 tie with a 7-0 run to build a 63-56 edge with 6:28 to play. Bey had four points in the surge while Wright had a bucket and free throw.
"We just had to shoot the ball with confidence," Wright said. "In the first half we were getting good looks but the stuff just wasn't falling for us. When that happens, you're supposed to tighten up on the defensive end, but we didn't do that either."
CU built the lead into double digits briefly with just under two minutes to play before the Cardinal closed the gap in the final minute.
SECOND-HALF NUMBERS: CU shot a red-hot 70 percent from the floor in the second half (14-for-20), including 8-for-8 from 3-point range … Wright and Schwartz had 15 of their points in the second half; Bey had 11 points and nine rebounds after intermission; and Battey had nine points in the second half.
TURNING POINT: Colorado trailed by 11 when da Silva was injured, and by 12 briefly after he left. But the Buffs soon put together a 16-2 run to take the lead, and while Stanford came back to temporarily go back ahead, momentum was clearly on the Buffs side.
WHAT IT MEANS: The Buffs guaranteed themselves of no worse than a tie for the league lead heading into next week's road trip to Oregon, while also collecting their first three-game win streak in Pac-12 play this year.
KEY STATISTICS: CU connected on 10 straight 3-pointers — the last two of the first half and all eight in the second half … The Buffs also shot 40 free throws and made 30, both season highs … The Buffs also held Stanford to 41.9 percent shooting in the second half (13-for-31).
QUOTEWORTHY: "I'm really proud of our guys. They got what it takes. We may not always play well, we may not always shoot well from the free throw line … what we can't do is feel sorry for ourselves because it's just part of the game. You just got to toughen up and come down and get a stop. Our guys, they have heart, they have toughness. I'm really proud of those guys." — CU head coach Tad Boyle
NEXT UP: The Buffs hit the road for a pair next week, beginning with a Thursday game at Oregon (7 p.m., ESPN), followed by a Saturday game at Oregon State (8 p.m., FS1).
Contact: Neill.Woelk@Colorado.edu
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