3 takeaways from Colorado's trip to Paradise Jam

BOULDER — Paradise Jam is a wrap!

The Colorado Buffaloes finished in fifth place at Paradise Jam in the U.S. Virgin Islands. They lost their opening game of the tournament to Southern Illinois 67-63, before bouncing back to beat Duquesne 84-76 in overtime and Brown 54-52. Colorado now sits at 5-1 on the season.

Here’s what we learned:

Colorado consistently starts slowly

Colorado jumped out to a 12-1 lead over Southern Illinois to start the tournament. By halftime, the Buffs trailed by eight points. Against Duquesne and Brown, Colorado trailed by six points at the break.

For some reason, Colorado couldn’t buy a bucket in first halves in paradise.

With such a young roster, it was easy to expect a rollercoaster ride this season, and even within most games. But scoring 24 points on average in the first half and 37.6 points on average in the second half in paradise is perplexing.

How did Colorado start so slowly, so consistently?

In all three games, the Buffs were clawing their way back into contention. To their credit, they were able to give themselves a chance to win each of these games despite their early struggles, and were able to pull wins out of two of them.

Something needs to change before the Buffs hit their next stretch of games. They’ll face Stanford at home on Saturday to open conference play, before heading out to Westwood to face No. 2 UCLA next Wednesday. Then they’ll head home to take on No. 15 Tennessee a few days later. Falling behind any of those teams early could be a death sentence.

Luckily, the Buffs will have a chance to practice for the first time in 10 days on Thursday.

The three-ball stopped falling

Before opening play at Paradise Jam, Colorado led the Pac-12 in 3-point shooting percentage by draining 46% of its shots through three games. The next best in the conference was just over 41%.

Then, in paradise, Colorado went 4-of-14, 4-of-19 and 1-of-9 from deep.

That’s 21% over the course of the 3-game stretch. Their season rate is now just below 35%, good for fifth in the conference. They’re also shooting, and making, the fewest per game.

Evan Battey is no longer perfect from deep.

Keeshawn Barthelemy’s 3-point percentage fell from 71% to 58%.

The rest of the rotation still hasn’t found much of a rhythm, outside of Julian Hammond III and Luke O’Brien who are both 1-of-2 on the year.

A six-game sample size still isn’t enough to predict what to expect from the Buffs when they’re behind the arc this season, but it’s definitely worth noting that their success has come when they’re playing in their own gym. For a young team, that makes sense.

Is this a simple shooting slump, or will shooting outside of the Events Center be a struggle all season? There’s no telling at this point, but figuring out how to score more points from deep would be a major boon for a Buffs team that has been inconsistent on the offensive end.

Keeshawn Barthelemy came back to Earth

Through three games, it appeared as though Colorado had found its primary scorer. Keeshawn Barthelemy put up 19 points in the season-opener, then 20, then 22. He shot better than 60% from the field and he was 5-of-7 from deep.

But in paradise, Barthelemy took a step backward.

The sophomore point guard scored 31 total points over the course of three games. He made 44% of his field goal attempts and of his 3-point attempts.

Barthelemy wasn’t bad by any means, but he wasn’t the same stud that we saw to open the season, and the Buffs missed having his scoring punch.

Evan Battey led the team in points in the tournament with 15.3 per game He was followed by Jabari Walker with 13, and Tristan da Silva with 10.3.

The most exciting development in terms of scoring was da Silva, who finished in double-figures twice after not hitting that mark once in the first few games of the season. He, like Battey, was efficient as well, making half of his field goal attempts.

Barthelemy’s drop-off in production is, of course, disappointing but Colorado expected to have to score by committee this season. Having a true No. 1 scorer would have been an exciting development, but it hasn’t happened quite yet.