Colorado is back on track from deep

BOULDER — They’re back!

After three-straight cold nights from deep, Colorado finally got hot from the 3-point line again on Thursday.

The key? Jeriah Horne.

“When Jeriah gets it going man he’s a rhythm shooter. He knows how to get his shots off. He’s got a quick release,” head coach Tad Boyle said after the game. “Look, the scouting report is out on Jeriah. You know, people are switching his ball screens but he’s just a crafty player and he gets himself going. You know, Jeriah’s got the ability to make tough shots.”

USC’s head coach, Andy Enfield, was impressed by Horne as well.

“He’s a very good player,” Enfield said after the game. “He’s a big guy that can shoot the ball, he stretches the floor, and he made some tough ones tonight. He made in our face, our big guys were out there guarding him, our guards were guarding him. We missed a couple coverages where he got open, once in transition and also once on a ball screen we were supposed to switch and our big didn’t do that, but he played an exceptional game tonight.”

Horne, who made 9 of his 12 shots and six of his nine 3-pointers, finished the night as Colorado’s leading scorer with 24 points. He’s made 46% of his threes this season but he’d only made 40% of the three he’d taken in the previous five games. That’s far from a devastating rate for Colorado, but he wasn’t the only shooter in a slump.

In the three games leading up to Thursday, Colorado hadn’t made 23% of its 3-pointers once.

“It’d been tough for us the last three games,” Boyle said. “So I knew it was just a matter of time, if we’re getting good shots and taking good shots that they’d start falling. I see us in practice. I see how guys shoot the ball and translated it to the game tonight.”

Horne wasn’t the only one who was hot from deep on Thursday. Eli Parquet and D’Shawn Schwartz each hit two of three from deep and Maddox Daniels and Jabari Walker each knocked one down. Overall, CU hit 12 of 22 3-pointers.

Point guard McKinley Wright IV credited his 14 assists, a new career high, to his teammates who made open shots.

“We’ve been working on this so all the credit goes to my teammates and my coaches,” Wright said.

It’s safe to say the offenses is clicking for the Colorado Buffaloes and there’s no better time than now to get hot. Colorado will host the Pac-12-leading UCLA Bruins on Saturday, and then they’ll take on Arizona State before heading into the postseason.

“Everybody here wants to play in the dance, something that this group hasn’t been a part of, but Saturday we have a really, really important game with a tournament team,” Wright said. “It’s a really, really big game for us and one we must win.”

Tipoff against UCLA is scheduled for 8 p.m. MST Saturday on ESPN2.