Buffs cruise to 84-61 win over South Dakota in season opener
On Wednesday night, Colorado kicked off the 2020-2021 season with a comfortable 84-61 victory over South Dakota in CU's first action within the Little Apple Classic, hosted by Kansas State.
The Buffs never trailed in the game and led by as much as 20 in the first half before hitting cruise control as the midway point in the second half approached.
"I thought we played really hard," head coach Tad Boyle said. "...Tonight I though we earned a win and I'm really proud of our guys."
Before tipoff, a notable pregame development centered around senior G/F D’Shawn Schwartz, who did not participate in the action due to COVID concerns, with Boyle sitting him due to a “possible exposure.”
To be clear, this does not mean Schwartz has tested positive for COVID, but rather, he sat out Wednesday after possibly coming into contact with an active case.
Per Boyle, Schwartz travelled back to Boulder earlier on Wednesday. His availability for Kansas State on Friday is to be determined.
"We wanted to be very safe with him and not put anybody else at risk so he hopefully will be back in uniform Friday," Boyle said. "We'll know more tomorrow."
At any rate, Boyle’s starting five were the Buffaloes’ veterans: seniors McKinley Wright IV, Dallas Walton and Maddox Daniels plus juniors Evan Battey and Eli Parquet.
As Colorado’s 30 preseason practices went on, Boyle mentioned that Wright IV had been dealing with a few nagging injuries and was approaching 100% health as the season opener approached.
Whatever the exact details of Wright IV’s ailments were, they did not appear to be holding him back Wednesday, as he led all game participants with 16 points by halftime.
He was 6-of-9 from the floor in the opening 20 minutes and had a couple near misses — balls that bounced around the rim but refused to go down — limiting him from an even more explosive first half.
Wright IV finished the game with 20 points on 8-of-12 shooting.
With much talk about the Buffs’ corps of true freshmen and the role that Jabari Walker, Tristan da Silva, Luke O’Brien and Dominique Clifford would play this year, part of that question seemed to be answered early into the action.
Walker got on the floor less than five minutes into things, scoring a quick four points via two perfect trips to the charity stripe and later draining Colorado’s first three-pointer of the season.
After a successful and-1 with 14:39 left in the game, Walker hit double digits in his first collegiate action. He finished with 10 points and six rebounds.
Da Silva also entered the game in the first half with just over 13 minutes left in the first half, but did not register any stats other than a pair of personal fouls.
Wright IV and Walker helped power the Buffs to a 45-31 halftime lead, while Walton also looked good opening half, scoring six points to go along with a team-high seven boards.
Notable for Walton was the lack of a leg brace he’d worn last season after suffering his third career ACL tear in the 2018-2019 preseason.
He finished the game with eight points and seven rebounds and overall, Boyle was pleased with his performance, albeit the five fouls he racked up in the game.
"For 14 minutes (played), you get 4-for-6 from the floor with eight points and seven rebounds — that's fantastic," Boyle said. 'We just got to have him play a little bit more. The way for him to do that is not have silly fouls."
With 2:45 to go before halftime, Colorado had built its biggest lead of the day at 20, with the score reading 45-25.
South Dakota went on a 6-0 run to end the first half, prompting a 30-second timeout by Boyle in the process, but the Coyotes’ mini rally would not translate into the final 20 minutes.
After about five minutes had passed in the second half, the Buffs’ lead was once more north of 20, as a fast break layup by Wright IV made things 57-36 in favor of Colorado.
If there was a second half standout for the Buffaloes, it undoubtedly was grad transfer forward Jeriah Horne, who in a two-minute, 15-second span, drained three straight three-pointers after having failed to make any of his previous seven shots.
He finished the game with 11 points, all in the second half.
"He's one of those veterans on the team," Walton said of Horne. "He's an older guy and a lot of the younger guys look up to him. We all he know what he's capable of and he had a great game for us today."
Also solid in his much-anticipated collegiate debut following last year's redshirt campaign was Keeshawn Barthelemy, who ended the game with 11 points and tied Walton for the team lead in rebounds with seven.
If anything, Barthelemy's 22 minutes on the floor proved to be a good indicator of how the Buffs will operate offensively with another dependable ball handler complimenting Wright IV.
"I told you guys before the season (about) how much I like playing with Keeshawn and the things he can bring to our team," Wright IV said. "I got to play off the ball a lot tonight with him on the court — that makes a lot of teams know what I can bring to the table. They key in on me and that opens up the floor for him and other guys."
While the Buffs are sure to be happy about their season-opening win, one area from Wednesday's game that'll doubtless need cleaned up is rebounding.
Colorado only edged South Dakota, 45-42 on the glass and in Boyle's mind allowed too many offensive boards to the Coyotes.
Ahead of Friday night's game against Kansas State, Boyle and players know they'll need to be much more stingy about allowing those kinds of numbers.
"We've got to shore up our defensive rebounding," Boyle said. "We let a team that is undersized get 14 offensive rebounds. That can't happen. If that happens against South Dakota, we're going to have a real problem against K-State on Friday."
From here, the Buffs will conduct a brief afternoon practice on Thanksgiving Thursday and then face Kansas State Friday at 6:30 p.m. MST.
Join the conversation on Colorado's season-opening win in Manhattan, KS at Buff Nation, the premiere message board community serving countless CU fanatics.