Colorado's Lack of Rythm Leads to First Loss of the Season
BOULDER— The Colorado Buffaloes men’s basketball team faced their first real opponent tonight, in the Notre Dame Fighting Irish and it showed. The Buffs never got into a rhythm, offensively or defensively and ultimately fell short 89-83.
“Yeah no question we spotted them 34 and then we switched our defensive coverage and got better from there but they are a good team and one of the deals with Notre Dame is you have to keep them off of the free throw line and obviously late we had to foul to try to get back in the game and they go 27-of-29 there,” Coach Boyle after the game. “They aren't going to let you back in the game that’s what good teams do.”
The Buffs had a hard time defending the Fighting Irish especially on the perimeter, Notre Dame hit 6-of-12 three-pointers at the half, they were able to figure out their perimeter defense in the second half, as Notre Dame didn't hit a single three.
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Notre Dame threw out some interesting offensive looks and the Buffs were never able to figure out how to defend it which lead to the Fighting Irish hitting 42 percent of their field goals.
They found themselves down by 15 at the half and from that point on the Buffs were never able to catch up. Bonzie Colson and Matt Farrell gave the Buffs major trouble on offense tonight, Colson ended the night with 22 points and 13 rebounds while Farrell had 20 points and six assists.
Not only did the Buffs struggle with their defense but they gave up 14 offensive rebounds and many second chance points.
The Fighting Irish outrebounded the Buffs 42 (14 offensive and 32 defensive) to 38 (8 offensive and 25 defensive). George King lead the team with 13 rebounds.
“We missed a lot of bunnies tonight we have to get tougher when it comes to finishing in the paint, whether there is contact or not we have to put the ball in the basket and we didn't tonight, I thought we had some really easy baskets that we let get away,” Boyle on making the easy baskets. “It gets to a toughness factor that we have to have to beat a good team like Notre Dame.”
On the bright side, Colorado shot 42.4 percent from the field, Xavier Johnson lead the charge with 23 points and seven rebounds, followed by Derrick White with 20 points and eight assists.
After four games, fifth-year senior Johnson finally looked to be getting back to his old self, he was more explosive tonight driving to the basket, taking jumpers and controlling the glass.
“Yeah I’m working with like a whole new team out there, I didn’t really get to play with George King except for his freshmen year, Wesley I’ve always played with him but everyone else out there is pretty much new,” Johnson on getting back to his old self. “So I’m trying to feel out their game, feel out practice, feel out how they do but sometimes I just got to do what I do best, takeover.”
Also, the Buffs did a fair job of taking care of the ball only giving up 10 turnovers, six in the first half and four in the second.
One thing to note, is senior forward Wesley Gordon picked up two early fouls and sat for over 16 minutes in the first half. This really hurt the Buffs defensively and rebounding wise. During the second half, Gordon was able to get back in the game and gave the Buffs better defensive looks and more rebounding, in the second half Gordon had four points and four rebounds.
Throughout the past two games the Buffs have greatly improved on their free throw shooting, they ended the half 100% from the line, going 7-of-7 and ended the game 18-of-19.
Bryce Peters continued to show his athleticism, finishing the night with seven points, he had a nice jumper to cut the Notre Dame lead to eight with 4:40 left. Peters is a guy who isn't afraid to drive the ball to the basket or take tough shots.
The Buffs lack of rhythm fundamentally hurt them tonight against the Fighting Irish and exposed some problems with the team this season.
“It was tough, it was a tough loss for us, we started off slow, we came out flat and they were hitting shots, we knew they could shoot and we didn't execute our defensive game plan and when you do that, you start off down 15 quick with a great shooting team so that’s where we messed up big time, the second half we were awesome but it wasn’t enough to win,” Johnson said.
The Buffs will face the winner of Texas/Northwestern tomorrow at 1:30.