The Colorado Buffaloes got their 20th win of the 2015-16 season, upsetting the No. 9 ranked Arizona Wildcats in Boulder. Although big man Josh Scott was the center of everyone’s attention, as he starred in cementing the Buffs dance resume, the entire team played a complete game, highlighted by the little things.

Dom’s Defense

The biggest question mark of sophomore Dominique Collier’s game has been his defense but there wasn’t any question’s about Collier’s ‘D’ against Arizona. His season-high three steals and handful of forced turnovers really stood out for CU.

“His effort and toughness were good,” Tad Boyle said. “Dom has all the tools to be a good defender, he’s got good length and he can anticipate. He just has a tendency to reach, and tonight he did a good job of keeping his hands off. He’s in some tough defensively situations as the point guard having to go back and defend the fast break, but I thought he did a terrific job.”

Collier and company held Arizona’s starting guards, Gabe York and Parker Jackson-Cartwright, to 13 points on 5-of-16 shooting. The Buffs also forced the Wildcats backcourt into six turnovers.

Also of note — Collier has struggled to hang onto the ball himself this season but he kept it cool against the Cats, only turning the ball over once in 22 minutes of play.

Golden era of Buffaloes Basketball

 

• The Coors Events Center opened in 1979, on Wednesday night, the building saw it’s 400th men’s basketball win. In the six years that Tad Boyle has coached the Buffs he has 87 of those 400 home wins. That’s 22% of the wins in building’s history in just 16% of it’s time.
• Colorado’s 12 wins over ranked opponents in Boyle’s almost six years is by far the best mark among any coach in program history. The Boyle-coached Buffs have a record of 12-22 against ranked opponents, and his teams have accounted for 21 percent of wins over ranked opponents (55 overall) since 1949-50.
• The victory over Arizona gave the Buffs another 20-win season, their fifth in six years. It is just the ninth time in program history the school has won 20 games in a single season.

“I didn’t even know that (it was the 400th win in CEC history),” Josh Scott said. “I think it’s just memorable in itself. I think all of these wins are going to be memorable down the stretch probably.”

One of the crazy occurrences from this upset win over Arizona is that it featured the same final score (75-72) as the last time the fans stormed the court (Kansas 2013)

“Nothing beats Ski’s (Askia Booker) buzzer-beater, I’m sorry,” the senior Scott told. “That was crazy.”

“It’s up there with it,” Redshirt Sophomore George King explained. “I’d have to pick Kansas over this one.”

Dancing Buffs

After Colorado’s win over Arizona they now have four top-50 wins this season and eight top-100 wins. If the Buffs are able to beat Arizona State on Sunday they’ll have nine top-100 wins, which would be plenty good enough for the Big Dance.

“I can’t begin to tell you how important this win was,” Tad Boyle explained. “Number one it gets us to 20 wins, number two it gives us a great win in terms of RPI and top ten. So as you go into the stretch run in February you need to be able to show that you can beat top teams and we showed tonight that we can beat a top team. This game was NCAA tournament atmosphere, and these were two NCAA tournament teams playing tonight.”

Even though the Buffs have high-end wins against Arizona, California and Oregon star big man Josh Scott remains cautious about the NCAA Tournament.

“I don’t like believing in Selection Sunday,” Scott said. “I’ve heard too many stories from the likes of former players, one in particular, and I just believe that this is a quality win. I believe this gets us in the tournament, but I think we’ve got to take every game like we got to win this one if we want to get in. That’s important to us.”

No matter what Scott says, the Buffaloes are all but locked into this year’s March Madness Tournament.