3 takeaways from Colorado's 80-76 win over Stanford

BOULDER — Colorado is UNDEFEATED in Pac-12 play!

The Colorado Buffaloes opened their 2021-22 conference slate with a home matchup against the Stanford Cardinal at the CU Events Center on Sunday. The Buffs pulled out an 80-76 win and improved their overall season record to 6-1. Next up is a road contest against UCLA on Wednesday.

Here’s what we learned:

The Buffs can hang

Despite the 5-1 record, Colorado got off to a fairly shaky start to the season.

It took overtime to beat Montana State in the season-opener. New Mexico was within three with two minutes remaining. Southern Illinois beat Colorado. The win over Duquesne took overtime. And the win over Brown was by two points.

A win is a win. But with only one convincing win on a resume jam-packed with mediocre-at-best teams, Colorado was far from proven entering its first conference game.

Stanford isn’t the cream of the crop in the Pac-12 but it is the best opponent CU has faced and the Buffs pulled out the win. At the very least, Sunday showed that Colorado can compete at the conference level.

Perhaps some of the earlier close calls helped the Buffs out against the Cardinal.

The game was tied at 66 with 3:2o left on the clock, but he Buffs came out of the timeout with a 7-0 run. The rest of the game wasn’t necessarily smooth sailing, but Stanford never got the ball back within one score of CU.

The young Buffaloes didn’t fade in the big moment and that’s a great sign early on.

Stanford was picked ninth in the conference preseason media poll, but beating them is still an accomplishment for such a young team, especially this early in the season.

Evan Battey is a legend

Senior forward Evan Battey needed 19 points to become the 38th player in CU history to score 1,000 career points.

He scored a career-high 22.

Evan Battey now has 1,001 points‼️

True Colorado legend 🦬 pic.twitter.com/DTlhdqCg8O

— DNVR Buffs (@DNVR_Buffs) November 29, 2021

More impressively, Battey scored his game-best 22 points on 8-of-11 shooting. He made all four of his 3-point attempts, bringing him to 8-of-11 from deep on the season.

Everything there is to be said about Battey has been repeated over and over again over the past few years. He’s an all-timer in Boulder and he’s the heartbeat of this team. We’ll see just how far he can carry Colorado over the next few months.

Evan Battey hits 1,000 points and gets the postgame talk with Bill Walton 🦬 pic.twitter.com/E5MVJ5enjQ

— DNVR Buffs (@DNVR_Buffs) November 29, 2021

The starters carried the load

While there’s plenty to be excited about, this team still has some flaws.

Early on in the season, it looks like bench scoring could be one of the biggest flaws.

Guard K.J. Simpson was impressive in his 20 minutes off the bench, scoring 12 points on 5-of-8 shooting, but there’s still more out there for the true freshman.

Outside of Simpson, the other four players who came off the CU bench only provided four points, and head coach Tad Boyle only allowed them to combine for 26 minutes. Meanwhile, the starters averaged over 30 minutes a piece.

The starters were a combined +33 in their minutes.

The bench was a combined -13.

Colorado is young and some of the youngsters are still fighting through their early-career struggles. In time, the bench should improve. But it seems as though Boyle is ready to let the starters carry the load until more of the bench can find some consistency.