BOULDER – On Saturday night a crowd of 9,374 witnessed something akin to your favorite band taking the stage again after what seemed like an eternity of inactivity.
No, it wasn’t quite the same as when you first fell in love with them back in the day, but it was close enough to bring a smile to your face. The Buffs we knew and loved were back, if only for a night.
The lineup has changed, but some of the old members, like Xavier Johnson and Wesley Gordon, were still there, and the Buffs rolled out all of the classics before a crowd that, despite its smaller size, occasionally grew loud enough to make you swear it was still 2013.
Beating a top-ten team at Coors Events Center? Check.
Making Dana Altman fly into fits of rage? Yup.
Chanting “O-VER-RATED” (this time with a thrilling segue into “JUST-LIKE-FOOTBALL”)? Uh-huh.
Playing lockdown defense and winning the rebounding battle against superior athletes? You bet.
Storming the court (despite an increased security presence)? Of course.
And, like any good concert, it even made your ears ring afterward.
It all felt so right, and yet there was the nagging feeling once it was over that things aren’t the way they used to be.
The Buffs are still 2-7 in Pac-12 play, and their only shot at making the NCAA tournament is a miracle run through the conference tournament in Las Vegas. Otherwise, they’ll be left out of the dance for the second time in three seasons.
This weekend also marks three full years since the last time CU was ranked in the AP Top 25. The heady days of Andre Roberson and Spencer Dinwiddie, when people were wondering just how high the program could go, are gone. At this point, it seems like CU will have some years where they make the NCAA tournament, some years when they don’t, and every once in a while they might have a team capable of making a run in March. But the dream of building a truly national program that could compete for conference titles year-in and year-out seems to have died. After six seasons, the Buffs have still never finished higher than fifth in the conference standings under Boyle, and that won’t change this year.
In fact, Saturday’s win only served to underscore how long it had been since the unquestioned high water mark of the Boyle era, when the No. 20 Buffaloes knocked off the then-undefeated and No, 10 ranked Ducks on January 5, 2014. Three years later, one program was in the top 10 again and riding a double-digit win streak, while the other had double-digit losses before the end of January.
The football team walking out to a standing ovation during a timeout was yet another reminder that basketball’s moment in the spotlight at CU has passed, at least for the time being. Although fan support remains very high by historical standards, attendance has decreased each of the last four seasons after the hysteria of 2012-13. Even last year, when the football team couldn’t be blamed as a distraction, things weren’t like they used to be. The Arizona game last February stands as the lone outpost of “peak Coors” from the last three seasons. As fun as Saturday night was, it doesn’t deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence as that night, or Texas in 2011, or Kansas in 2013.
That said, it was an absolute blast. In a season that has been full of frustration and disappointment, the Buffaloes gave their fans exactly what they came to see on Saturday night. They put on a show. They also provided us with something that only great sporting events or concerts seem to provide: an escape. The world will still be the same when we wake up on Monday morning. It still won’t be 2013, the Buffs won’t be any higher than No. 10 in the Pac-12 standings, and Mayor Dinwiddie won’t be walking through the door to save us. But on Saturday night there were times when all of that was forgotten and it was possible, if only for a moment, to close your eyes, listen to the deafening noise, and pretend like nothing had changed at all.
