BUFFS LIKELY DONE
Colorado falls to Arizona 83-67
First, McKinley Wright limped off the court. Then he was forced to stagger out of T-Mobile Arena, retreating in pain to the Colorado locker room.
And he took the Buffaloes’ hopes of a magical run through the Pac-12 Tournament with him.
CU’s season likely ended Thursday with an 83-67 loss to top-seeded Arizona in the Pac12 quarterfinals, a game that changed dramatically once Wright was sidelined because of a sprained ankle. Arizona quickly took control, eliminating the Buffs from the league tournament for the third consecutive year and for the fifth time in six years.
The Buffs dropped to 17-15. They will cross their fingers and hope for a second consecutive NIT berth, though with several Pac-12 teams ahead of them in the NIT’s pecking order, that development appears unlikely.
“Today was not Colorado’s day, obviously,” said CU’s Tad Boyle, who coached with a walking boot covering the right calf he injured at the end of the Buffs’ first-round victory over Arizona State on Wednesday. “Arizona had a lot to do with that. My hat’s off to them. They played well. They played better than us today. We weren’t good enough.
“We weren’t good enough rebounding the ball all game long, and I thought a lot of 50-50 balls that could have gone either way went to Arizona.”
The Wildcats led by only two points at halftime and by just five when Wright limped to CU’s bench. A pair of free throws from Namon Wright kept the Buffs within three, but as McKinley Wright attempted to walk off his injury the Wildcats abruptly took over, reeling off a 14-0 run.
An 8-1 run by the Buffs cut Arizona’s lead to 10 points with just under three minutes remaining, but there wasn’t nearly enough time left for CU to pull off a comeback. Throughout the game a familiar weakness again thwarted the Buffs, as 15 turnovers by them led to 19 points for the Wildcats.
Afterward, Boyle said if it had been a tighter game down the stretch McKinley Wright may have been able to return to action, but the Wildcats’ dominance made it not worth the risk.
“McKinley is important to us, there’s no doubt about that,” Boyle said. “Our offense stalled at times today, like it has all year. We had some open looks that didn’t go in. But our defense and rebounding was not good enough to rely on today to keep us in the game. That 14-0 run is a great example of that. When McKinley goes out, it might take us a while to figure things out offensively, but we weren’t getting any stops. They went on that run, and it was kind of all she wrote.”
Playing in what likely was his final game for the Buffs, senior George King finished with a team-leading 19 points. Sophomore forward Lucas Siewert capped his late-season surge by scoring 16 points. McKinley Wright had eight points and five assists.
Boyle reiterated that CU won’t play in a third-tier postseason tournament such as the CBI.