There may be one primary reason why Colorado no longer only plays well at its cozy, mile-high home in Boulder.
“We’re old,” junior guard Tyler Bey said Friday, as the Buffs finished practice at McKale Center in preparation for Arizona. “We’re all pretty used to this. We should be confident in what we’re going to do tomorrow.”
En route to their current No. 20 ranking, the Buffs have been 6-1 in games played away from the CU Events Center, losing only at Kansas but winning two other true road games —at Colorado State last month and at Arizona State on Thursday.
Coach Tad Boyle says another neutral site game should probably count in that total. That would be their Dec. 19 appearance at Chicago’s United Center, where fans predominately rooted for Dayton and heavily booed CU point guard McKinley Wright, who initially signed with the Flyers but instead went to Colorado after coach Archie Miller left in the spring of 2017 to take over Indiana.
Wright had 29 points and 10 rebounds, leading Colorado to a 78-76 overtime win over the 13th-ranked Flyers.
“I wanted them to keep booing,” Wright said after the game. “It gave me a little juice.”
So they’re old — and, apparently, unfazed.
“We beat a really good Dayton team in a road environment,” Boyle said Friday. “They said it was a neutral court game. That was not a neutral game in Chicago.
“But it still wasn’t McKale.”
Oh yeah. McKale Center. The place where Colorado has lost seven straight times since joining the Pac-12 in 2011-12 — although longtime Buffs fans argue that they should have won in 2012-13, when officials controversially ruled Sabatino Chen did not get off his potential game-winning 3-pointer in time, allowing the game to go into overtime. Arizona went on to win by nine points.
For the Buffaloes, McKale Center represents another level they still have not reached. But they’ll enter Saturday’s game with arguably their most talented roster since joining the Pac-12.
The Buffaloes have a full array of size and skills at every position, from the 6-foot do-everything Wright to the NBA-grade athleticism of Bey and the get-out-of-the-way presence of 260-pound big man Evan Battey inside.
They’re so loaded that 7-footer Dallas Walton, who had 15 points on 7-for-7 shooting against Deandre Ayton and Dusan Ristic two seasons ago, is averaging only 6.4 minutes this season following an injury redshirt season.
Moreover, they appear to have the sort of chemistry that can break down when guys like Walton, forward Alexander Strating and guard Eli Parquet are being forced into significantly reduced roles.
“I love coaching them,” Boyle says. “They’ve got great togetherness and team cohesiveness, and that goes a long way. … We’ve had guys sacrifice. There’s no doubt about that. We knew coming in that we were going to need that.”
Colorado guard McKinley Wright and the Buffaloes defeated Arizona State on Thursday night to move to 3-1 in the Pac-12.
Boyle has used his many options to carve out the best possible defensive group, too. Colorado is the nation’s 17th most efficient defense and is allowing Pac-12 opponents to shoot just 25.7% over four conference games so far.
That could be a cause for concern for a UA team that hit 15 of 29 3-pointers against a more inexperienced Utah defense on Thursday after failing to hit the 30% mark from 3 in its previous four games.
Boyle said he’s worried about how well UA point guard Nico Mannion handles ball screens and makes decisions, in addition to defending the new Wildcat inside-outside post duo of Zeke Nnaji and Stone Gettings (“a really, really difficult proposition,” Boyle says).
But 3-point defense has been largely a staple for Colorado.
“You always have to guard the 3-point line in college basketball. It’s a great equalizer,” Boyle said. “They’ve definitely got some capable shooters who obviously showed that last night … (but defending 3s has) been one of our strengths since the Northern Iowa game.”
In that Dec. 10 game, the biggest blemish on the Buffs’ resume so far, Colorado gave up 14 of 26 3s and fouled on another attempt.
Since then, CU’s opponents have hit just 23% of their 3-point attempts.
Maybe, based on what Bey says, that’s another extension of good team chemistry.
“Our defense is just trust — we trust each other enough to know, when somebody gets beat, we’re gonna help,” Bey said. “That’s pretty much it. Just trust.”
And, of course, the fact that, well, they’re old. And talented.
Arizona State forward Romello White, right, pulls the rebound away from Colorado forward Lucas Siewart (23) during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game, Thursday, Jan. 16, 2020, in Tempe, Ariz. (AP Photo/Matt York)
It’s the kind of combination you don’t often see in high-major college basketball much these days, and a reason why the Buffs were picked to finish second in the Pac-12 this season, just barely behind Oregon.
It’s a reason why Colorado is different than the young Utah team that Arizona smashed 93-77 on Thursday, and maybe more like the veteran Oregon and Oregon State teams that beat UA last weekend.
“We expected to be good this year,” Boyle said. “We’ve got guys back. We’ve kind of been through the battles. Utah’s our travel partner and they’re battling the ups and downs of dealing with youth, and we shouldn’t be dealing with that because we’ve got juniors and seniors. We have no freshmen who are playing. We’ve got guys who kind of have been there and done that, so our consistency should be good.
“But,” Boyle added, as he stood Friday along the courtside rails at McKale, “the fact of the matter is we still have yet to win in this building.”
