SPORTS BUFFS BEAT OREGON ST.; WASHINGTON UP NEXT
COLORADO 73, OREGON STATE 58
We’ve seen this movie before, haven’t we? Down year for the league. Washington holding on to the No. 1 seed like it was a wet bar of soap. Tad Boyle’s Colorado Buffaloes needing to win four games in four days in order to punch a ticket to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.
If you’re thinking it’s starting to feel a little like March 2012 all over again after the Buffs powered past Oregon State, 7358, early Thursday night at the Pac12 conference tourney, well, get in line.
“We knew we had to dial in and guard,” CU guard McKinley Wright, who led the Buffs with 17 points and drained eight huge free throws, told the Pac12 Network after helping CU (2111) reach the tourney semifinals for the first time since 2014.
You guard, you crash the boards, you drain your foul shots and you take care of the ball, and eight times out of 10, you survive. Oregon State shot just 34 percent from the floor, missed 15 of 18 3point attempts, got outboarded 3829 and watched the Buffs connect on 23 of 27 from the charity stripe — including five of six over the game’s final 90 seconds. Advancing in March may be a science, but it ain’t the rocket kind.
The Buffs on Friday night will face the top-seeded Huskies (25-7), who scare almost nobody right now save for the members of UW’s Tyee booster club. Over the final 24 seconds of a 78-75 quarterfinal win over vs. No. 8 seed USC, Washington whiffed on four of its last five free throw tries, all but handing the men of Troy a window in which to make things interesting.
Friday’s semi promises to be interesting, too, assuming Wright looks more like the kid who’s been straight money in Vegas this week (17.5 points, 6.0 boards, 3.5 assists per game over his first two Pac-12 tourney appearances) and less like the one during CU’s previous two meetings with Huskies (averaging 3.0 points, 2.0 boards, and 3.5 assists), both Washington wins.
Wright and the Buffs weathered a pair of 10-0 Beavers runs in the second half to advance, thanks to defense, poise, and muscle — outrebounding Oregon State 18-8 through the game’s first 16 minutes while building up a 32-12 cushion.
It was largely the same formula that carried Boyle’s bunch to four victories in four days during the 2012 Pac-12 tournament, a run capped by an automatic berth in the Big Dance and CU’s first ticket to Bracketville in nine years. As of Thursday night, the Buffs had danced halfway to déjà vu.