Buffs Open Pac-12 Tournament Against Washington State

LAS VEGAS — Tad Boyle's film sessions are teaching moments. Win or lose, when the Colorado coach shows game film to his players, the sole goal is to help the Buffaloes improve their game.

"I always look at the things that we need to get better at," Boyle said Wednesday after the Buffs wrapped up a shootaround at T-Mobile Arena. "During the regular season, when you're going from game to game, whether it's a win or whether it's a loss, you want to keep getting better, you want to keep learning, you want to keep growing."

But earlier this week, before the Buffs left for Las Vegas for Wednesday's 9:30 p.m. (MT) Pac-12 tournament opener against Washington State, Boyle flipped the script. In the wake of Colorado's current four-game losing streak, Boyle put together an eight-minute highlight clip — sort of a "Buffs Greatest Hits."

The result hit home. The Buffs were reminded of all the good things they have done thus far, a season that has included wins over two ranked teams, 13 weeks in the nation's top 25 polls, and a current No. 23 NET ranking.

"You could just sense a kind of excitement in the room," Boyle said. "They like to see the ball go through that through the net. We started with about five or six really good defensive possessions against Dayton, Oregon, really good teams that we've played and beaten this year. Then we went to the offensive side. I just wanted every player that's played to look at how good we played at times this year … I just want to try to get that positive mojo back and you could tell they were excited when it was over."

The players indeed took notice.

"We've seen some film of how good we can be," point guard McKinley Wright IV said. "We watched about 20 clips on offense of great possessions we had and about 10 clips on defense of great possessions we had. We all believe in each other and we know that we can get this thing turned back around in the right direction."

That, of course, is exactly what Boyle and the Buffs are aiming for this week. While Boyle admits such a highlight film might go against his nature — in fact, he said it might be the first time he's used such a clip — he wanted to remind his players how good they have been, and how good they could still be as they head into conference tourney and postseason play.

"I just felt like it's a new season and we just have to look at the positives right now and try to make that happen again, because we're a good team," Boyle said. "We've just got to play like it and it's a good idea to plant that seed in their minds."

Buffs fans will see Wednesday whether Boyle's motivational moment did the trick. While 21-10 Colorado slipped to the sixth seed and thus missed a first-round bye, the Buffs nevertheless have what looks to be a favorable draw in the tournament. CU handily defeated Washington State, 78-56, in their only regular season meeting in late January, and the Buffs did it without starter Tyler Bey, who missed the game with a hand injury.

Should Colorado get by Washington State, the Buffs would see Arizona State in the quarterfinals, a team CU has beaten twice this season.

But nobody in the CU locker room is looking past the Cougars. While Washington State brings a 15-16 record to Las Vegas, the Cougars do own wins over three of the tournament's top seeds — UCLA (a team that swept CU this year), Oregon and Arizona State.

WSU is led by all-conference forward CJ Elleby, a 6-foot-6 sophomore who is averaging 18.0 points and 7.8 rebounds per game, and they have another potent scorer in 6-3 guard Isaac Bonton (15.3 ppg).

While the Buffs did win by 22 in their first meeting with WSU, it wasn't a rout from the beginning. Colorado led by just five at the half and the Cougars were still within four with just more than 12 minutes to play before CU finally pulled away. The Buffs made it a runaway down the stretch by holding WSU without a field goal for a seven-minute stretch.

But even without Bey, the Buffs had four players in double figures, led by double-doubles from Lucas Siewert (16 points, 10 rebounds) and Evan Battey (12 points, 10 rebounds).

"This is not going to be a pushover," Boyle said. "We have to come out compete and and have attention to detail in terms of who we are guarding and understand that."

BOYLE IN CONFERENCE TOURNAMENTS: Boyle has a 15-8 record in conference tournament play and he is 9-0 in first-round conference tournament games (including one season in the Big 12). CU is the only team in the league to win at least one game in every Pac-12 tournament.

SIXTH SEED MAGIC? Since the Pac-12 expanded in 2011-2012, two teams have won four games to win the conference tournament. Colorado ran the table for four games in 2012 and Oregon did it in 2019 — and both teams were No. 6 sees.

TIPOFF: Wednesday's game is set to tip off at 9:30 p.m. (MT) at T-Mobile Arena.

THE SERIES: Colorado holds a 14-5 all-time series lead, including a 2-1 edge on neutral courts.

BROADCAST: The game will be televised by the Pac-12 Network with Ted Robinson, Bill Walton and Lewis Johnson. The radio broadcast will be carried by 850 AM and 94.1 FM with Voice of the Buffs Mark Johnson and Scott Wilke.

UP NEXT: If the Buffs win, they will face Arizona State in Thursday night's 9:30 p.m. quarterfinal.

Contact: Neill.Woelk@Colorado.edu