BOULDER — What’s gone wrong for the Colorado Buffaloes in their losses this season?
“We didn’t play with the level of focus and intensity that we did against Dayton and we did against Oregon,” head coach Tad Boyle said.
Let’s set the stage here.
Colorado is 12-3 with big-time wins over No. 9 Oregon and No. 15 Dayton. The Buffs have also lost games to Northern Iowa (receiving votes) and Oregon State (not receiving votes). There’s another loss, to No. 3 Kansas, but that isn’t factored into Boyle’s evaluation.
“The KU game I throw out of the equation because we couldn’t make a shot that day,” Boyle said. “We could’ve guarded as well as we’ve guarded all year and not won. We just got beat that day.”
Boyle says the problems in the two losses he’s concerned with start with a lack of execution. His team couldn’t execute its defensive gameplan in either contest and that’s what doomed it.
Against Northern Iowa, for example, there was one point on the whiteboard listed above everything else.
“The Northern Iowa gameplan was to take away their threes,” Boyle said. “We had to take away their threes to beat them, and we didn’t do it. They made 14 threes, 15 if you count the guy getting fouled who made three free throws. That’s 45 points we gave up.”
In non-conference play, the Northern Iowa Panthers only lost one game. The loss came to No. 17 West Virginia.
In that game, Northern Iowa only made three 3-pointers.
Then, to open Missouri Valley Conference play, the Panthers took on Illinois State, in what turned out to be their only other loss so far this year.
Northern Iowa only made seven 3-pointers.
“You hold Northern Iowa to seven threes, you win that game and it’s not even close,” Boyle said of the contest in Boulder.
The path to beating Northern Iowa was clear but, for whatever reason, Colorado just couldn’t execute it. Then, less than a month later, the same thing happened.
“Oregon State: different animal, same issue though,” Boyle said. “(Against) Oregon State the gameplan was to keep the ball out of the paint. They have to score at the rim to be effective and they had 42 points in the paint.”
The inability to execute a gameplan makes it tough to win games; the weaknesses are identified but not exploited. The details that change from game to game aren’t the only ones Colorado keeps botching, though.
“Fouling a 3-point jump shooter, we’ve done it eight times this year. It should never happen once,” Boyle said. “It’s a cardinal sin. It’s like saving the ball underneath your opponent’s basket. ‘I saved it out of bounds.’ Yeah, you saved it out of bounds but they laid it in for two points. That’s something you should learn in third grade. Not fouling a jump-shooter is something you should learn in third grade.
“I’ve coached McKinley (Wright IV) and D’Shawn (Schwartz) now for two-and-a-half years. That’s my fault they haven’t learned, so I’ve got to take ownership of that.”
Boyle notes that the players aren’t the only ones making mistakes. He’s questioned some of the decisions he’s made, especially late in games. For example, against Oregon State, he isn’t sure he should have allowed D’Shawn Schwartz to guard Beavers star Tres Tinkle. He also wishes he would have called a timeout earlier in OSU’s 24-5 run to close that game out.
There’s plenty of time left in the season to counteract the pair of bad losses but there isn’t much more room for mistakes. The competition for the top seeds in the Pac-12 will be tight and teams won’t be able to afford more than a few losses. Home losses are particularly painful.
“To be a consistent team that wants to compete for a conference championship, we’ve put ourselves in the hole a little bit by losing a game at home,” Boyle said. “We’re going to have to make up for that at some point on the road.”
Only two undefeated teams remain in the Pac-12; No. 24 Arizona and Stanford. That means eight teams split their opening weekend of conference games. While that sounds like a fairly level playing field going forward, Boyle sees things differently. He thinks the teams that were able to pull wins on the road last weekend put themselves in a much better position than the teams that only won one of their two home games.
“Guess what,” Boyle said. “We were a home team. Disadvantage Colorado.”
Luckily, there are still 16 games for the Buffs to catch up.
Colorado has a few extra days this week to put things back together. They only play one game this weekend, a rarity in the Pac-12, and it isn’t until Sunday at 4 p.m. The Utah Utes will be in town and Colorado should be a pretty heavy favorite.
But the Utes have shown the ability to knock off more talented teams this season. They gave Oregon a scare, only losing by five points and they took down No. 14 Kentucky 69-66. Utah should present a more formidable challenge than expected, especially considering the home upsets Colorado has suffered already this season.
“Next Sunday we should have a higher-level Colorado basketball team, both offensively and defensively,” Boyle said. “We can’t lose more home games because that just puts more pressure on you on the road.”
