Colorado
21-10,10-8Pac-12
Utah
16-14,7-11Pac-12
Buffs Fall In Overtime At Utah
March 07, 2020 | Men's Basketball, Neill Woelk
SALT LAKE CITY — Colorado's hopes for a first-round bye in the Pac-12 tournament were crushed in the final seconds here Saturday when Utah stole a 74-72 overtime victory at the Huntsman Center.
CU's fourth straight loss to end the regular season dropped the Buffs to 21-10 overall and 10-8 in Pac-12 play while Utah improved to 16-14, 7-11.
Colorado thus finished in a tie for fifth in the final Pac-12 standings with Arizona, but lost the tiebreaker with the Wildcats and dropped to the sixth seed in next week's Pac-12 tournament at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The Buffs will open play Wednesday against No. 11 seed Washington State (15-16, 6-12) in a 9:30 p.m. (MT) game. If they win their opener, they will face No. 3 seed Arizona State on Thursday.
Colorado led for more than 37 minutes of the game, but saw Utah's Both Gach hit a basket at the end of regulation to force overtime, then saw Gach hit three free throws with :00.6 on the clock in overtime to hand CU the loss. Gach's free throws came after Colorado's McKinley Wright IV was called for a questionable foul as Gach attempted a desperation 3-pointer just before the buzzer.
The Buffs needed a win to guarantee a top-four finish and first-round bye in next week's Pac-12 tournament.Â
Wright led CU with 20 points, six rebounds and six assists. Tyler Bey had a 16-point, 10-rebound double-double for Colorado, his 12th of the season, and Evan Battey had 15 points for CU.
Gach had a career-high 28 points for Utah.
Along with letting a first-round bye slip away — something the Buffs have never had in conference tournament play — CU also missed out on a school-record 22nd regular season win.
"A really disappointing loss because this was an opportunity for us to do something that had never been done in Colorado basketball," CU coach Tad Boyle said. "We had four opportunities to do it, so it wasn't just tonight … But tonight was the one that stings the most because we had a lead at the end, but it wasn't meant to be."
HOW IT HAPPENED: The Buffs had their chances to collect the win in regulation and overtime, but could not come up with the key plays when it mattered most.
CU led by two, 64-62, with 19 seconds left in regulation after a Bey three-point play, but couldn't get a defensive stop on the Utes' final possession, as Gach scored on a drive inside with 2.5 seconds remaining.
The Buffs then used an 8-2 run down the stretch in overtime to go up 72-70 on a Wright drive to the basket with 31.7 seconds left. Utah's Timmy Allen hit one of two free throws with 9.1 seconds on the clock and Wright was fouled on the in-bounds pass with eight seconds to go and CU leading 72-71.
Wright, though, missed the front end of the one-and-one and the Utes rushed the ball down the floor and Gach heaved a desperation 3-point try from in front of the Utah bench that badly missed the mark. But Wright was called for a foul on the shot, even though Gach was fading away on the attempt, and Gach hit all three free throws to hand Colorado the loss.
"The guy was fading away on a three," Boyle said. "We always talk to our post guys, when you fade away in the post you usually don't get calls. But they did on the perimeter. I'll watch it on film, but there's nothing we can do about it. It's 15 guys we've fouled from beyond the 3-point line this year. Two tonight. We fouled Gach in the first half and then Gach right there."
The loss was particularly tough for the Buffs to take because they played well enough to win for much of the night. CU built a 10-point lead midway through the first half and took an eight-point cushion into halftime, 41-33. Colorado dominated the Utes in the paint in the first 20 minutes, holding a 20-10 edge on points inside.
But when Colorado couldn't hit from the outside to start the second half, the Utes began to shut down CU's inside game and Utah used a 7-0 run to cut the Buffs' lead to one, 41-40, less than three minutes in.Â
The Buffs temporarily pushed their cushion back to six after an Eli Parquet 3-pointer, but Utah put together another 7-0 run to take their first lead of the game, 47-46, with 13:22 to play.
Colorado finished the game shooting 43.8 percent from the field (28-for-64), but that included just 7-for-28 from 3-point range and only 2-for-15 after halftime from beyond the arc.Â
"We missed some wide open shots," Boyle said. "At some point you have to have guys step up and make shots. You put so much pressure on your defense, which we did tonight. That's unfortunate. But those are things as a coach you can't control. Guys aren't trying to miss shots. I'm not mad at them, it's just unfortunate."
The Buffs did finally manage to get the ball back inside after Utah took its first lead of the game. After a Wright 3-pointer, CU got buckets from Battey and Maddox Daniels inside, part of a 9-0 run that gave CU an eight-point edge, 55-47, at the midway point of the half.
But Utah once again chipped away at Colorado's cushion, and with 2:34 to go, regained the lead on an Alfonso Plummer 3-pointer that came following a Utes offensive rebound. The two teams then traded the lead twice over the next two minutes before Bey's three-point play with 19 seconds left gave CU a 64-62 edge, only to see Gach's runner from the lane send the game into overtime.
"They got a couple good looks we didn't want them to have," Wright said. "Go back to the drawing board, start from scratch and keep working on our defense."
Colorado played well from the outset in the first half, jumping out to an early lead and building the margin to as much as 10 points, 23-13, midway through the half on a Daniels 3-pointer.
Utah battled back to close the gap to three late in the half, 36-33, but Colorado scored the last five points of the half, getting a Wright drive to the basket and a Daniels 3-pointer out of a timeout to send the Buffs into the locker room with a 41-33 edge at intermission.
Bey had nine points and seven rebounds in the first half while Wright had 11 points and four assists. The Buffs also had a 20-10 edge in points in the paint in the first 20 minutes.
TURNING POINT: There was no turning point to this one until the final seconds of overtime, when a foul call on a desperation 3-pointer at the buzzer bailed the Utes out and gave them a second chance for the win.
WHAT IT MEANS: The Buffs must now open Pac-12 tournament play on Wednesday instead of getting a first-round bye as their losing streak is now at four. It is CU's longest losing streak since losing seven in a row to start Pac-12 play in the 2016-17 season.
KEY STATISTICS: CU shot just 25 percent from 3-point range (7-for-28) … The Utes were also awarded 19 free throws and made 16 while the Buffs shot just 12 and made nine.
QUOTEWORTHY: "New season. Our regular season is over with, 21-10. Not where we wanted to be, on a four-game slide, but it's a new season. We have to hit the reset button and get back to who we know we can be. No more road games, no more home games. Everything's on a neutral floor from here on out and we've got to be the tougher team and the better executing team when we go to Las Vegas." — CU head coach Tad Boyle.Â
UP NEXT: The Buffs open play Wednesday in the Pac-12 tournament in Las Vegas as the sixth seed against No. 11 Washington State in a 9:30 p.m. (MT) game at T-Mobile Arena. In their only regular season meeting this year, Colorado beat Washington State, 78-56, in Boulder on Jan. 23.Â
Contact: Neill.Woelk@Colorado.edu
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