BOULDER — The Colorado Buffaloes are among the best 3-point shooting teams in the Pac-12, but they may not stay there for long.
In its last three games, Colorado hasn’t shot better than 22% from deep, despite still holding a 36.1% mark for the season, good for second in the Pac-12.
“My job, and our job as a coaching staff, is to make sure you’re getting good shots by what we’re running and how we’re running and how we’re executing it,” Boyle told reporters Wednesday. “It’s your job to step up and make those shots when you get them and understand the difference between a good shot and a bad shot and sometimes when guys are struggling it’s because they’re taking bad shots. I don’t think that’s really the case for us.”
And even if Colorado’s problem was tough shots, the Buffs have a a few guys who specialize in knocking down their contested looks.
“We’ve got a couple of guys who take tough shots,” Boyle said. “Jeriah Horne takes some tough ones but he’s got the ability to make some tough ones. But the other guys — you know Maddox (Daniels), D’Shawn (Schwartz), Kin (Wright), all the guys — when they’re open, we want them to let it fly. They’re good shooters and you’ve got to live with the results.”
Recently, the results have been bad. They’ve made 13 of their last 60 over the three-game cold streak. Boyle called it a five-game streak (and added a quick “but who’s counting”), which would include an 8-for-19 showing at Stanford and a 5-for-13 night against Oregon State before that.
Four of the five games have taken place on the road and Boyle believes ending on a three-game homestand could be exactly what the Buffs need to get back on track.
“We’ve been a good shooting team at home for the most part and where we struggle a lot sometimes is on the road,” Boyle said. “Our guys have gotten a lot of shots up in this gym in their careers and we’ve got a veteran group, so I’m not overly concerned with it because we’ve been getting good shots.”
Again, though, good shots only matter if the team can knock them down. If not, it’ll be time for adjustments.
“When those aren’t going in on a certain night that’s when we have to adjust and say, ‘Okay, let’s get to the foul line, let’s get the ball in the paint, let’s get the ball to the rim.’ You’ve gotta find other ways to score,” Boyle said.
Colorado is the best free throw shooting team in the country but they’ve hit a patch of adversity from the charity stripe in recent weeks as well; the Buffs have hit fewer than 10 free throws in four of their last five games (for the season, Colorado has made 14 free throws per game) and shot 10 percentage points below their season average in the other.
Don’t get it twisted; free throws are still a strength for Colorado.
Hopefully heading back home will make that strength shine.
