Colorado is running out of time to work out the kinks

BOULDER — We expected this season to be a rollercoaster and that’s exactly what we’ve gotten.

Colorado just about botched a game against Eastern Washington on Wednesday, and head coach Tad Boyle wasn’t pleased.

“We were lucky to win tonight,” he said after the Eastern Washington game. “Our poor shooting led to poor energy level.”

That low energy level led the Buffs to blow a 15-point lead and find themselves trailing in the game’s final minutes.

“What angers me is our lack of fire, our lack of energy,” Boyle said. “That’s what I get angry at. I don’t care if you miss a shot. What I care about is do you have a little life and spunk in you when you’re in the huddle.”

Colorado dodged a bullet when the Eagles missed a buzzer-beating 3-pointer that would have sent the game to overtime, but that’s nothing new.

Of Colorado’s 10 games, seven have come down to the final minute. The Buffaloes came out on top in six of those seven, but they should have won just about all of them by more.

Outside of the conference win over Stanford, Colorado has played one opponent in the top 150 of the current KenPom rankings in a close game: No. 133 Southern Illinois. Montana State and Brown both crack the top 200. The rest of the seven close games were against teams outside of the top 200.

Somehow, the Buffs are sitting at 7-3. Only four Pac-12 teams have a better record. But this level of play can’t continue much longer.

The Buffs will take on Milwaukee on Friday and then CSU Bakersfield the following Saturday. Both are home games, and both teams are outside of the top 200. It shouldn’t take a top-notch performance for the Buffaloes to pull out wins.

But the schedule becomes tougher the rest of the way.

The Buffs take on No. 8 Kansas to wrap up conference play and then CU will enter full-blown conference play for the rest of the season. It goes without saying that the Pac-12 teams are, for the most part, better than the competition Colorado has seen this season outside of a couple of games.

With two games to go before the opponents become really tough, the Buffs can’t afford to play below their potential.

“Hopefully this is the last one of those that we have,” star forward Jabari Walker said Wednesday. “I think we’ve got to figure out how to get a lead and maintain a lead.”