Boyle: Hadley “heart and soul” of surging Buffs
J’vonne Hadley has developed into a dependable 10- and- six guy, consistently delivering double- figure points alongside sturdy work on the glass.
At 6- foot- 6, Hadley often operates at a size disadvantage inside. But that frame also makes him a versatile defender, a trait that has been on display for a Colorado men’s basketball team that improved to 8- 2 with a thorough 90- 68 nonconference win on Friday night against Northern Colorado.
Hadley turned in yet another efficient outing, shooting 6 of 9 with 15 points, five rebounds and a career- high six assists.
Hadley also recorded a pair of steals and, during the week, lobbied head coach Tad Boyle for the defensive assignment against UNC’S leading scorer, 6- foot- 7 forward Saint Thomas.
“That’s just who he is,” Boyle said. “What I love about J’vonne is he basically, after the scouting report ( Thursday), he came up to me and said, ‘ Coach, I want Saint Thomas.’ We could’ve put Tristan ( da Silva) on him. We could’ve put size on him. It could’ve been Luke ( O’brien). But J’vonne Hadley, as a coach you love it when they come up and say give me that challenge, give me that assignment. He’s taken it to heart.
“We’ve got a lot of weapons on this team. But J’vonne Hadley, he’s kind of the heart and soul. Our unsung hero, if you will.”
Hadley v isibly expressed some frustration when Thomas hit a tough 3- pointer in the second half, but overall Hadley and the Buffs put the clamps on Thomas. While UNC’S leading scorer finished with 27 points, the most by any CU foe so far this season, it was a hard- fought total for Thomas. And most of those points arrived with the game already out of reach.
Thomas scored 19 points after halftime, with the Buffs comfortably in the lead, and he was 4 for 11 overall and 0 for 5 on 3- pointers at the break. Thomas also shared the UNC lead with three turnovers.
Hadley, meanwhile, has collected 10 assists against only two turnovers in the past two games, while raising his field goal percentage of 58.7, which ranks second on what has been a prolific shooting team through the first 10 games. ( Injured freshman Cody Williams, who has played seven games, leads the way at 62.3%).
Following Friday’s win, the Buffs were set to take the rest of the weekend off before resuming practice on Monday ahead of the nonconference finale at home on Thursday against Utah Tech ( 5 p. m., Pac- 12 Network).
As the top team among others receiving votes in this past week’s Associated Press top 25, the Buffs have a good shot at rejoining the top 25 on Monday in the wake of a loss by No. 25 Northwestern at home against Chicago State.
CU, though, remains focused on finishing the semester strong before enjoying a short break ahead of the program’s final Pac- 12 Conference opener at home on Dec. 29 against Washington.
“I just let the game come to me. I do what I got to do for the team’s sake,” Hadley said. “Just keeping aggressive, both offense and defense. All those stats and stuff like that, those are going to take care of themselves at the end of the day as long as I play hard and be aggressive.
“We look forward to finishing off the winter ( before) break strong. We did notice a little bit of the rankings as well. We don’t really care too much about the rankings, but that definitely gave us a little bit of an edge. At the end of the day, you’re going to always try to count Colorado out, so Colorado versus everybody is kind of our motto in that locker room.”