With exactly 10 minutes left in the second half, the Buffaloes trailed Montana State, 63-53, looking to be at severe risk of dropping their first-ever home opener in Boulder since Tad Boyle took the reins of CU's basketball program in 2010.
But the Buffs battled down the stretch, forced overtime and prevailed, defeating the visiting Bobcats, 94-90.
All game pictures were snapped by Nigel Amstock/Rivals.
After slowing clawing their way back into the game from seven separate deficits of 10-plus points down the stretch in the second half, a dunk by Nique Clifford, who found the door to the low post wide open off a feed from Jabari Walker, tied the game at 73-all with 3:27 to play.
However, with just 53 seconds to play, things looked bleak for the Buffs, who trailed, 80-75, following a pair of Bobcats free throws and a long ball from Xavier Bishop.
Evan Battey hit two free throws with 43 seconds to go and after Bishop shanked a free throw attempt following what looked to be a costly, decisive foul called on Tristan da Silva, Walker snagged the rebound and the Buffaloes moved the ball into the offensive zone.
With 27 seconds left, Keeshawn Barthelemy got bottled up near the right elbow and intelligently called a timeout.
The Buffs then managed to draw up a play, with Walker driving to the rim before dishing it out to Eli Parquet, who hit his one three-pointer of the game at the most critical moment, tying the game at 80 with 18 seconds to play.
“Coming out of that timeout, it was a play drawn up with a ball screen to get our guard downhill, get Evan rolling to the rim and filling it up with a shooter behind the ball screen," Tad Boyle said after the game. "I said, ‘We’ll take a quick 2, but if we get a wide open 3, we’ll take that, too. We just need to get a great shot.'"
"That possession did not — it was kind of like a broken play, if you will, and Jabari, I thought, made a really, really heads up play on the drive, kicking it out. Because, at that point, there wasn’t a lot of time and that was a really astute play on his part...Jabari made a great penetrate and kick. Obviously, Eli relocated, was shot-ready and knocked the shot down but those two guys did a heck of a job — I had nothing to do with that.”
Montana State, which shot an impressive 48% from the floor on the night, was held scoreless for the first 2:40 of overtime, by which point the Buffaloes had taken an 85-80 lead.
While the Bobcats certainly made things interesting towards the end of the five-minute overtime period, their offensive surge in the final minute fell short; MSU managed just two points in overtime leading into the 44-second-mark.
Barthelemy led the Buffaloes with 19 points on 6-of-11 shooting, while Parquet hit 5-of-11 of his shots, scoring a career-high 17 points.
Battey, after uncharacteristically going 0-of-10 from the floor in CU's final preseason exhibition at Nebraska two Sundays ago, shot a perfect 6-of-6 Tuesday night, scoring 16 points, 11 of which came in the second half and overtime.
When the clocks read all zeroes, five Buffaloes had scored in the double digits, with Clifford finishing just one rebound shy of a double-double (11 points, 9 rebounds).
Overall, CU shot 29-of-57 (51%) from the floor, hitting 9-of-19 (47%) of its attempted three-pointers.
Early on, Boyle seemed likely to age at least a few years by game's end, as he appeared furious more than a handful of times after the Buffs allowed open-look three-pointers or easy buckets in the low post.
Montana State's Jubrile Belo and Abdul Mohamed were particularly menacing to the Buffaloes Tuesday, as both finished with 16 points, with Mohamed going 3-of-6 from deep and Belo finishing 6-of-7 shots from the floor.
A lack of defensive adjustments saw Colorado's first half lead of seven reverse to a deficit of three by halftime, as MSU's RaeQuan Battle hit an impressive, deep off-balance three as time expired.
“Our switching has got to get better," Boyle said after the game. "We gave up a minimum of 15 points tonight just in ball screen switches. You’re supposed to switch to take away threes, you’re supposed to switch from taking away the (pick and) roll — we didn’t do a good job of that.”
If Battle's improbable three-pointer to end the first half was demoralizing, more of the same was in store for CU as the second half got underway.
Quickly, the Buffs' deficit jumped to six, then seven and eight, before Bishop drilled one of the Bobcats' six second half three-pointers, putting them up by 11.
It would be the first of many more double-digit leads that Montana State would take over the Buffs before they found a way to lock in defensively and get stops.
“They were getting to the (foul) line and we weren’t getting to the line," Parquet said after the win. "They were attacking us, we weren’t attacking them, so we started attacking them and on defense, we just had to lock in. If we didn’t do that, we weren't going to win the game.”
Porous defense, sloppy turnovers — the list goes on in terms of what the youthful 2021-2022 Buffaloes need to improve upon before their next game, a Saturday (4:30 p.m. MST) tipoff at the CU Events Center vs. New Mexico.
But in Colorado's first game that went to overtime since March of 2020 at Utah, Boyle's Buffs displayed an admirable level of grit and resolve leading into a well-earned off-day Wednesday.
"Right now, I'm exhausted," Boyle said. "I really am and I'm sure our players are, too. Tomorrow will be a good day off but I'll meet with out staff in the morning and we'll start figuring out finding the balance between learning from tonight in the film room and preparing for New Mexico. That's what we'll do on Thursday and Friday."
