Colorado’s welcome to the Big 12 moment came against not only one of the best teams in the conference, but one of the best in the country.
Tad Boyle and the Buffs got a sneak peak at Iowa State at the Maui Invitational in November when T.J. Otzelberger and the Cyclones demolished the Buffs in a 99-71 rout. Colorado played much better in Monday's contest and gave itself a chance to win down the stretch, but Iowa State proved to be too much in a 79-69 loss for CU.
“Disappointed in the result, without a doubt,” head coach Tad Boyle said postgame. “We lost to a hell of a team. Iowa State’s No. 3 in the country for a reason. They’re tough. They’re well coached. They’ve got good players and our guys fought and they battled and they scratched and they clawed. I’ve got no issues with our effort tonight, but we knew the answer to the test before the test was given. … Handling their pressure and taking care of the basketball, which we didn’t do a good enough job of for 40 minutes.”
Colorado (9-3, 0-1 Big 12) played without starting forward Andrej Jakimovski, who is dealing with an illness. As it turned out, the Buffs didn’t miss his scoring all that much, but they did miss him on the glass as rebounding and turnovers ended up being the difference in the game.
Like most Iowa State games, this one was a defensive slugfest early on. The Cyclones (11-1, 1-0) struggled to make shots from the floor while Colorado was bitten by the turnover bug. The Buffs committed a number of completely unforced turnovers that allowed Iowa State to hang around early.
Despite the turnovers and a real struggle to score on the inside, Julian Hammond III set the tone with a deep 3-pointer on the first possession of the game, and he and Javon Ruffin opened the game with five points each to tie the game at 10 with 12 minutes left in the first half.
Colorado did a nice job hanging around for most of the first half despite its offensive struggles as the lead changed hands seven times. In the final 4 minutes before the break, Iowa State finally got its feet under it and started to get some separation.
The biggest moment of the first half came with just under 4 minutes left. After a basket by RJ Smith, Iowa State collected three offensive rebounds on its next possession culminating in a 3-pointer by Curtis Jones. The seemingly never-ending sequence forced an angry timeout from Tad Boyle as Iowa State took a 32-27 lead.
“When we’re on defense, it’s five guys’ job to defensive rebound,” Boyle said when asked about the nearly minute-long possession. “It’s not just one or two guys. It’s not just our big guys that are supposed to rebound the ball. It’s all five of them. There were times where we just got our tails kicked. 50-50 ball, they got it and we didn’t.”
The Buffs gave another freebie away at the end of the half. Trailing by just three, Colorado seemed to have gotten a stop to take that slim deficit into the half. However, Sebastian Rancik fumbled an uncontested layup out of bounds with 3 seconds to go giving the Cyclones one more shot. Jones popped open into the corner and splashed the 3 to take a 37-31 lead into the half.
At the start of the second half, Iowa State rattled off six points in a row to extend its lead to 12, and the Buffs reached a fork in the road. However, Boyle’s squad responded with a lightning-quick 8-0 run to cut the deficit back to four with just over 15 minutes to go. That’s when CU made its run.
After Iowa State took a 48-45 lead, Trevor Baskin finished two easy shots on the inside to give Colorado its first lead of the second half. Bangot Dak followed that up with a basket and a steal that led to a Javon Ruffin layup, completing an 8-0 run that put the Buffs up 53-48 with 13 minutes remaining.
However, the Buffs could only hold that lead for 2 minutes. Jones finished a pair of buckets on the interior to put Iowa State back in front, and the lead changed hands a couple more times before Tamin Lipsey started to get going. The star guard splashed a contested 3-pointer off a Colorado turnover to give Iowa State a 61-57 lead with 8 minutes to go.
Colorado continued to hang tough even when it looked like the Cyclones were on the verge of pulling away, but the prolific scoring of the Iowa State guards proved to be too much. After the Buffs cut the lead to 66-63, it was Keshon Gilbert who came up with two quick buckets to keep the game at arm’s reach. Lipsey added another big fast break bucket to extend the Cyclones’ lead to 75-67 with just 2 minutes to play. Then, it was Jones salting the game away at the free-throw line with four straight makes.
Colorado outshot Iowa State in this one 49% to 43%, and it won the 3-point battle by three. However, the gap in turnovers and rebounds was just too large for Boyle’s group to overcome.
Colorado turned the ball over 19 times to Iowa State’s nine, and the Cyclones scored 21 second-chance points on 20 offensive rebounds. For as well as Colorado shot the ball and as hard as it played on defense, the massive gap in the possession battle decided the game in the end.
“We knew both of those areas (turnovers and rebounds) were what we had to do a better job of to win this game, and we weren’t good enough in those areas tonight to do that,” Boyle said.
Hammond led all scorers with 21 points, and Smith added 14 as the only other Colorado player in double figures. Jones racked up 20 for Iowa State, followed by Gilbert with 14 of his own. The Buffs also went cold at the wrong time, missing their final six 3-pointers of the night after making four in a row during their run to take the lead in the second half.
Colorado won’t be pleased with the result, but it should be happy with the effort and the intensity it played with. If they can bottle that up and take it on the road, the Buffs should have chances to pick up a win next time out against Arizona State on Saturday.
“Welcome to the Big 12,” Boyle said. “Here we are. We got 19 more of these, so strap it on.”
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