Youthful Buffs learn about hostile setting
CINCINNATI» If the 2017-18 college basketball season is treated as one long educational crash course of the youthful Colorado Buffaloes, then count Saturday’s thrashing at the hands of Xavier as a painful learning lesson.
A monstrous hole CU dug for itself in the opening stages of the first half proved far too much for the Buffs to overcome on Saturday, as No. 13-ranked Xavier rolled to a 96-69 victory at the Cintas Center.
An early glut of turnovers, combined from another red-hot effort from one of the top shooting teams in the nation, erased a commendable effort by the Buffs at rallying in the second half.
“We have to learn from this. We have a lot of young guys out there that this is an opportunity for them to say, ‘OK, this is how college basketball is played at the highest level,’ ” CU coach Tad Boyle said. “We’ve got a lot of guys who don’t quite understand that right now. But they will.”
Starting two true freshmen (Mckinley Wright and Lazar Nikolic), a redshirt freshman (Dallas Walton) and sophomore Deleon Brown in a sold-out, hostile arena, CU committed eight turnovers in the first 7: 13 of the game.
Although the Buffs committed just eight more the rest of the way, an Xavier team that entered the contest ranked second in the nation in field-goal percentage was all too happy to take advantage of CU’S giveaways.
Xavier shot 18-for-32 in the first half and knocked down six of its first seven 3-point attempts, building a lead that reached 26 points.
Xavier finished 9-for-14 on 3pointers.
The Buffs managed to close the first half with a 13-3 run, cutting Xavier’s lead to 49-33 at the break, and CU eventually whittled the deficit to 13 with an 11-2 run sparked by two long 3-pointers by senior Dom Collier.
Xavier, though, took a timeout with 11:02 remaining and immediately regrouped, scoring the next eight points in a 20-4 run that put the Buffs away.
Xavier All-american candidate Trevon Bluiett went 8-for-14 and finished with 25 points and seven rebounds.
Namon Wright paced the Buffs with 20 points off the bench and Mckinley Wright added 16 points and five assists. Senior George King struggled from the field, going 5-for-15 overall and 1-for-5 on 3-pointers, but he finished with 15 points and became the 34th CU player to reach the 1,000-point mark in his career.
“We just had a slow start, and they started fast. They got the momentum and it the snowball effect after that,” King said. “I thought we did a good job of actually cutting into the lead in the first half, and then in the second half, we cut into it some more. We’ve just got to string stops and play our game.”