Buffs celebrate sans fans
IB OULDE R» t had been too long. How good does it feel for the Buffaloes to go dancing again? After trouncing the 19thranked USC Trojans 80-62 Thursday, senior McKinley Wright IV and teammate Evan Battey circled the perimeter of CU Events Center basketball court, exchanging imaginary high-fives with cardboard cutout fans in the student section.
“Imaginary celebration,” said Wright, who has learned in these Rona times that a man has got to make his own fun and find ways to bond in any creative way possible.
In an arena empty except for 98 socially distanced family and friends, the high-fives were pretend. But the joy of these Buffs was very real after recording their biggest victory of a sometimes frustrating season for a supremely talented team.
It will now be next to impossible to deny CU a bid to the
NCAA Tournament that Wright has been chasing since arriving on the Boulder campus in 2017.
“Everybody here wants to play in the Dance, something this group hasn’t done,” said Wright, whose passion was nearly as important to beating the Trojans
as his 14 assists, the most by a CU player in a single game since 1991.
After hitting a shot early in the first half, Wright was hit with a technical foul, one of three charged to the fired-up Buffs against
USC. “We have not gotten a lot technicals, woofing at the other team or talking trash,” CU coach Tad Boyle said.
Whether chasing down a loose ball or applying suffocating defense, basketball is best played with emotions so intense to border on over-the-line. At its worst, this CU team relies too much on its offense. At their best, these players make Boyle smile by doing all the dirty work that’s just as sweet as the sound of swishing a jumper. On this night, the Buffs were far superior to USC because they brought heat the Trojans couldn’t handle.
Colorado surged to a 13-point lead at intermission, powered by the relentless energy of two reserves, graduate transfer Jeriah Horne and raw freshman Jabari Walker, who both added the jolt provided by 3-point baskets late in the first half.
After Horne, who led all scorers with 24 points, flexed with a bullyball layup that pushed CU to a 56-39 advantage and shoved USC to the brink of submission with 12 minutes, 50 seconds remaining in the game, Trojans coach Andy Enfield resorted to the desperate measure of full-court pressure, hoping to force the Buffs into the same late collapse they suffered against Utah a month ago.
While Boyle has made basketball matter in Boulder like nobody since Chauncey Billups, as the coach begins his second decade on the CU bench, the question lingers: Is a truly elite program more than a pipe dream in Boulder?
While the CU football team took its lumps after joining the Pac-12, Boyle led the Buffs to an NCAA Tournament bid in four of five seasons from from 2012-16. That success, however, did not allow Boyle to break through with prospects who dream of glory at Gonzaga or Kansas.
After the coronavirus counted the NCAA tournament among its first sports victims last winter, this will be the first chance for the Buffs to go dancing in five seasons. The return to March Madness is a testament to the gritty persistence and sustained excellence of Wright, the rare top-shelf player who ignored the temptation of turning pro early and relishes the old-school way college athletics were back in the day.
Wright, who played in front of family members for the first time in this pandemic-shaped season, is now so close to a cherished tourney bid he can taste it.
“We really want to be there,” Wright said. “I think we can get there and make a run.”