Colorado
8-3
Fort Hays State
Buffs Grind Out Win Over Fort Hays
December 17, 2016 | Men's Basketball, Neill Woelk
BOULDER — Minutes after an 81-71 win over visiting Fort Hays State on Saturday, Colorado head coach Tad Boyle didn't sugarcoat his feelings.
"This coaching staff has been here for seven years and this team has two things going for it right now," Boyle said. "Number one they own the most disappointing loss in that seven-year span, the Colorado State game a few weeks ago. Now they can also add that they own the most disappointing win, which is the Fort Hays State game here today."
Boyle was clearly frustrated with the Buffs' second-half effort. After bumping a 17-point halftime lead up to 21 early in the second half, the Buffs then went into early vacation mode. Fort Hays cut the deficit back to single digits twice, including down to nine, 76-67, with just under three minutes left to play before the Buffs held on down the stretch.
Not that the Buffs were ever truly in danger of losing to the Division II Tigers. But instead of putting the game away when they had the chance, they allowed Fort Hays to stay close, thanks in great part to a 29-point second half from sharpshooter Rob Davis.
"We have to dictate defensively," Boyle said. "If we can't dictate against Fort Hays, I don't know how we're going to dictate against Utah or Arizona State or Arizona or anybody in the Pac-12. … We don't have the mental toughness to put anybody away. We don't have the mental toughness to play two halves back to back. That's obvious. We better either figure it out or it's going to be an up and down year."
HOW IT HAPPENED: The Buffs threatened to blow the game open early, jumping out to an 18-2 lead in the first eight minutes. George King scored the first five points for CU and Derrick White hit six straight free throws in the early run.
But the Tigers then managed to keep the gap from expanding much more and Colorado led by 17 at the half, 39-22. King and Josh Fortune both had seven points in the opening half while Xavier Johnson and White had six apiece.
Davis, meanwhile, struggled for Fort Hays in the opening 20 minutes, going 0-for-4 from the field, a big part of Fort Hays' 7-for-32 shooting woes in the half.
Colorado then opened the second half much like the first, threatening to blow the game open. Fortune hit a 3-pointer in the first minute and Johnson followed with a free throw to bump CU's cushion to 21, 43-22.
But almost as soon as the Buffs built their big lead of the game, Davis caught fire and very nearly shot the Tigers back into the game by himself. The Fort Hays senior scored eight points in a 10-0 Fort Hays run and with 14:46 to go in the game, the Tigers had cut CU's lead down to eight, 47-39.
"Thank god Davis didn't play very well in the first half or play very much because he would have had 50 on us," Boyle said. "We had nobody guarding him."
The Buffs, though, never let the Tigers get closer than eight. They quickly pushed the lead back to double digits, putting together a 12-2 run spurred by a pair of 3-pointers and two free throws from freshman Deleon Brown.
The Tigers then made one more run at the Buffs, narrowing the gap to nine, 76-67, with 2:55 to go, but Fortune and Tory Miller both hit a pair of free throws in the final two minutes to keep the Tigers at bay.
Johnson, Fortune and Brown finished with 15 points each for the Buffs while Wesley Gordon led CU with seven rebounds. Colorado also had a mere 40-36 rebounding edge on the Tigers, another statistic that left Boyle scratching his head.
"We've become a below-average rebounding team in the span of about a week and a half," Boyle said. "We were a very good rebounding team. I think we were a plus-10 about two weeks ago going into the Xavier game. We get punked by Xavier, we get punked by BYU and we outrebound Fort Hays by a whopping four."
TURNING POINT: After Fort Hays had pulled to within eight with 14:46 still to go in the game, the Buffs went on a 12-2 run to rebuild a comfortable cushion and the Tigers never pulled closer than nine again.
WHAT IT MEANS: While the Buffs have shown they can play well in spurts, consistency is still a huge issue with this team. With just two more non-conference games to go before the Pac-12 season, they need to figure out how to put together a full 40 minutes.
CU STANDOUTS: True freshman Deleon Brown had his best game as a Buff, finishing with 15 points, three rebounds, two assists and two steals. … Xavier Johnson had 15 points and five rebounds. … Josh Fortune snapped out of an 0-for-16 shooting slump over the last three games to hit five of his nine field goal tries, including a 3-for-6 day from 3-point range. … Derrick White had 10 points — eight coming on free throws — to go with a game-high six assists, no turnovers, two blocks and a steal.
KEY STATISTICS: The Buffs hit 31 of 41 free throw tries while the Tigers had only 13 free throw attempts and connected on nine. … Colorado also outrebounded the visitors, 40-36, and outscored the Tigers 26-16 in the paint.
NOTEWORTHY: After missing their first nine shots of the game and 14 of their first 15, the Tigers shot 50 percent the rest of the game (25-for-50). … Davis' 29 second-half points were a Coors Events Center record for a half, eclipsing the 28 points scored by former Buff Cory Higgins against Colorado State in 2008 and the 28 scored by UMKC's Tony Dumas against the Buffs in 1994. … Colorado's 31 free throws made were a season high. … White had his second straight game with at least six assists and he extended his streak of consecutive free throws made to 12. … Wesley Gordon made his 102nd career start, tying Stevie Wise (1987-91) for ninth on CU's all-time list. …. Xavier Johnson made his 77th career start, tying him with Rodell Guest (1987-91) for 19th. … The 49 points scored by Fort Hays in the second half were the most given up by the Buffs in the second half this season.
QUOTEWORTHY: "I feel the clock ticking. Right now, the way our team is playing, we're a below-average basketball team, at least to the standards that I feel like Colorado basketball has risen to over the past few years. We've got the capability of being as good as we want to be and beating anybody in the league. But it's got to be every night." — CU head coach Tad Boyle
"Coach was telling us we didn't put in a full 40 minutes, we put 20 minutes together — maybe. The second half we obviously didn't guard as well as we're capable of and it showed. … It's got to mean something." — CU's George King
"I need to apologize to everybody that was in the building or watching the game or fans of this team for the effort in the second half because it was atrocious." — Boyle
"It was definitely nice to make a few shots. My teammates found me when I was open, we had the ball a lot in the first half and it felt good to make some shots." — CU's Josh Fortune.
"Tonight Deleon Brown was the first sub off the bench. I've looked at Deleon's minutes, his playing time, his grades, his efficiency. He deserves more playing time than he's gotten. He got it tonight and guess what — he did a pretty good job with it. That's a guy we need to keep bringing along. He's got to do his part and hopefully be as consistent as a freshman can be coming off the bench, but I thought he was good tonight. Deleon's a guy that's dependable, doing the right things, trying to do the right things." — Boyle
NEXT UP: The Buffs travel down I-25 for a Monday game at Air Force, set to tip off at 7 p.m. (CBS Sports Network). Colorado then returns home Thursday for a 6:30 p.m. game against Eastern Washington before a short holiday break. The Buffs begin their Pac-12 schedule Jan. 1 with a 4:30 p.m. game at Utah.
Contact: Neill.Woelk@Colorado.edu
