LAS VEGAS — Arizona’s march through adversity and Colorado’s near-march off a cliff are history now.
Things are back to normal. The Buffaloes and Wildcats are meeting in a Pac-12 Tournament quarterfinal again, just like they always seem to.
It’ll be the fifth time in six seasons that Colorado and Arizona will meet in the Pac-12 Tournament, and the third time they have played in the quarterfinals, now that Colorado put its 0-7 start to conference play even further behind them in a 73-63 comeback win over Washington State in a first round game at T-Mobile Arena.
“It’s all good, with where we’re at now,” Colorado forward Xavier Johnson said. “What’s better than getting to play Arizona again for a last time? I’m excited to play. I’ll be giving my heart, giving my all.”
Maybe it’s simplistic, but Johnson and some of his teammates say that’s pretty much the difference that turned their season around: Just playing hard, and becoming the kind of more defensive-minded team that they have historically been under coach Tad Boyle.
Their schedule was another part of their problem.
The Buffs opened with five of seven games on the road, including their 82-73 loss to Arizona on Jan. 7 at McKale Center. They also had to face three straight ranked teams during that stretch – hosting UCLA and then-ranked USC after losing at McKale Center.
Johnson said the 0-7 streak was a “depressing” experience to go through, but teammate George King said there was a team chemistry that helped keep things together.
“I think our collectiveness off the court started to show on the court,” King said. “It was tough but you learn from adversity. It’s hard to learn when everything’s going good.”
During their seven-game losing streak to start Pac-12 play, the Buffaloes gave up an average of 83.9 points and 48.1 percent 3-point shooting. But over their final 11 games of conference regular-season play, they allowed just 69.6 points and 46.1 field-goal percentage shooting.
Colorado also cut down opponents’ 3-point shooting from 42.7 to 37.4 percent over that span.
“We just knew we had to buckle down defensively,” Johnson said. “We weren’t playing defense to our capabilities. We’re capable of winning at a high level.”
However, Johnson found the Buffs reverting to that defensive mediocrity in the first half Thursday. They allowed WSU to shoot 52.7 percent in the first half, when the Cougars took leads of up to 19 points.
The Cougars led 30-11 with 7:01 to go in the first half, and held a 41-27 advantage at halftime. But Colorado went a 12-3 run early in the second half to get back in the game and before long had a six-point lead when Derrick White fed Johnson for an alley-oop dunk with 7:42 minutes left.
Washington State cut it to 62-60 with 2:29 left but a 3-pointer by Josh Fortune gave the Buffs a five-point lead and they maintained a two-possession lead for the rest of the game.
The win, which moved the Buffs to 19-13 overall, was Colorado’s ninth in its past 12 games.
That’s the kind of momentum that can sound scary for the Wildcats, who struggled to put Colorado away back in January. Especially since they have four fifth-year seniors, including Johnson and guard White, who had a game-high 26 points Wednesday.
“They’re an older team with a lot of experience,” said UA assistant coach Book Richardson, who scouted Wednesday’s game. “They’re seniors, so they been through the wars. They’re coming here very capable of winning four games in four days.”
Oh yeah, about that.
Colorado actually pulled that difficult feat off its first year in the Pac-12 — and beat, guess who? — Arizona in the final to win the 2012 Pac-12 Tournament and gain an NCAA Tournament bid it would not have received otherwise.
No doubt Boyle has told his guys about that little piece of history.
“I think we can do it,” Johnson said. “But we can’t do it if we only play 20 minutes of basketball. We have to play 40 minutes especially with three Top 10 teams in this tournament. We could play them all. We’re gonna see.”
