ROB DAVIS’ KITCHEN – Fort Hayes State’s Rob Davis almost robbed the Colorado Buffaloes on their home court, dropping 29 points in the second half for the division-II program. Fortunately for the Colorado Buffaloes, he was only one of two Tigers that could get going as CU held on for an 81-71 victory.
Davis’ 29 were the most points in a half in Coors Events Center history but the Buffaloes answered with a combined 45 points from Xavier Johnson, Delon Brown and Josh Fortune. Despite the trio finding their strokes, the Buffs have yet to hit their stride.
Struggling on Saturday against a far inferior opponent the Buffs failed to hit their defensive or rebounding benchmarks. Letting the Tigers shoot 40% from the field while only out-rebounding them by four.
“If we can’t dictate against Fort Hayes I don’t know how the hell we’re going to dictate against anyone in the Pac-12,” Tad Boyle stated as he began to light into his team. “We’ve become a bad rebounding team in about a week-and-a-half.”
While it wasn’t all bad for the Buffs as their first half was pretty solid, the second half soured a 10 point win.
“No, no, no that was not the game we expected,” George King explained. “We didn’t put 40 minutes together we put 20 minutes together.”
The Buffs led 39-22 after the first 20 garnering a solid effort on the defensive side of the ball holding the Tigers to 22% shooting. CU even forced FHS into a ton of foul trouble as their leading score Davis was held to just 8 minutes of action because of three fouls. It wasn’t just Davis that was caught by the whistle, the Tigers were forced to use 12 players in the first 20 minutes of the game because of the unfriendly calls.
“Thank God Davis didn’t play well in the first half or he would’ve had 50,” Boyle retorted astonished by the performance he had just witnessed. “They missed a lot of open shots in the first half so you get that false sense of security where you think you’re guarding well but in reality, you’re really not.”
In the second half it was Davis’ show, to say he cooked would be an understatement. The junior guard went 7-of-9 from the arc, adding four more from the field as well. Hadley Gillum tacked on 15 of his own on 7-of-11 shooting and the Tigers kept clawing back into the Buffaloes.
“We didn’t of a very good job on Davis tonight, he’s a good player,” Boyle spoke to the confident quick shooting guard.
The Buffs were outscored by seven in the second half and the Tigers were one shy of putting up 50 in that 20-minute frame. Thanks a lot to Davis’ shooting which everyone did and should credit. Yet the story wasn’t Davis, it is like it always is with Boyle, defense, and rebounding.
“I feel the clock ticking,” Boyle almost speechlessly shrugged. “The way we are playing right now we are a below average team, We don’t have the toughness to put anyone away, we don’t have the mental toughness. It could be a really tough year.”
While the Buffs did just beat a highly-talented Xavier club and came away from their toughest four-game stretch at .500, they’ve only got two more non-conference games left and they have yet to wake up.
“Absolutely, this was a bad win… this was, uh… I don’t know how to put it, it was eye-opening,” King attempted to state his disappointment postgame.
“This team has two things going for them,” Boyle told. “The most disappointing loss in Colorado Basketball in the last seven years, Colorado State, and now they have the most disappointing win, Fort Hays State.”
Boyle finished his press conference with the same taste that the game left in CU fans’ mouth.
“Right now, with this team, I’m disgusted.”
