Colorado University Athletics
Senior Johnson Brings Measure Of Consistency To Buffs
January 09, 2017 | Men's Basketball, Neill Woelk
BOULDER — In a season in which consistency has been a trouble spot for the Colorado Buffaloes, CU senior Xavier Johnson is providing a piece of stability for Tad Boyle's Buffs.
Johnson, who returned to the lineup this year after missing last season rehabilitating an Achilles tendon tear, is one of two players Boyle named Monday as Buffs who have "separated themselves a little bit from the pack in terms of their consistency and their production."
But in order for the Buffs to break their current Pac-12 skid — 0-3 heading into Thursday's 9 p.m. encounter with fourth-ranked UCLA at the Coors Events Center — they need more than just Johnson and Derrick White in the consistency category.
"We need two or three guys to join them," Boyle said. "We've got very capable players on this team but they've got to join those two guys on a consistent level in terms of not only effort, but execution and production."
The options aren't hard to pinpoint.
Senior Wesley Gordon, expected to have a breakout year in the absence of fellow big man Josh Scott, instead has had an up-and-down season. Gordon played perhaps his best game of the season in Saturday's 82-73 loss at Arizona, scoring a season-high 16 points to go with nine rebound. But that came on the heels of games against Utah and Arizona State when he scored a combined 12 points and had eight rebounds.
Junior George King also had a solid game against the Wildcats, scoring 12 points and grabbing 11 rebounds for his fifth double-double of the year. But in the loss at Arizona State, he had just four points on 1-for-9 shooting, and for the season, the player who led the Pac-12 in 3-point shooting percentage a year ago is shooting just 28 percent (17-for-60) from long range.
The story is the same for senior Josh Fortune and junior Dom Collier, two other players who have struggled to make consistency an element of their game.
Johnson, though, is doing his part in his final year in a CU uniform. He had a season-high 26 points against Arizona, following up on a 13-point effort at ASU in a game that saw him play just 15 minutes after being ejected late in the first half. He's shooting 50 percent from the field for the season (79-for-158) and is averaging 14.7 points per game, second on the team to White's 15.3.
"'X' is an inside-out guy," Boyle said. "I thought he took more 3s against Arizona probably than he has for a while, but the biggest thing with 'X' is take good shots. Usually guys' field goal percentage is a reflection of their shot selection. When their field goal percentage is high, it means that they're usually taking pretty good shots. When it's low, they're either taking bad shots or they're in a slump."
Johnson was 9-for-20 from the field against Arizona. He made four of his 10 3-point attempts — the most 3-point tries in a game by a Buff since Askia Booker attempted 10 in back-to-back games in 2015 — but he also went to the rim enough to keep Arizona's defense honest.
It is the inside part of his game that may well prove to be what the Buffs need most as they continue their Pac-12 schedule. At 6-foot-7, 225 pounds, Johnson has the ability to post up in the paint and the quickness to get by bigger, slower defenders.
"During the summer I didn't work on my inside game that much," Johnson said. "But I worked with Coach (Mike) Rohn, I worked with the bigs, trying to create that inside-out game. I'm a big guy, I might as well play inside a little bit and play outside and attack and do everything. I'm just trying to win and be the best I can possibly be."
But Johnson said his recent steady surge won't mean much if the Buffs can't turn their fortunes around in the win-loss column.
"It really doesn't matter how I'm doing if we're not winning," he said. "If we don't win, no one will achieve anything they want to achieve. If we don't win, it's going to be all over. All I care about is winning."
To get there the Buffs have to be able to finish what they started. Against both Utah and Arizona, CU jumped out to big early leads, only to allow the opponent to come back and take the lead each time.
"This team has had great effort, great energy," Boyle said. "We've gotten off to great starts. … You can't say we weren't ready to play, we just couldn't sustain those. … Usually when you have an Achilles heel it's going to stay with you and the Achilles heel of this team has been rebounding and consistency."
KING OF THE BOARDS? While King's offensive numbers have been erratic, he's leading the Buffs in rebounding in Pac-12 play, averaging nearly eight boards per game, good enough for eighth in the conference. For the season, he's second on the team with 7.3 per game (trailing Gordon's 8.0), but his five double-digit rebound games this year are also the most of anyone on the team.
BUFFS BITS: CU junior Tory Miller is averaging 6.7 points per game in conference play, and has hit 67 percent of his shots (10-for-15) in that stretch. … Thanks in large part to his 35-point effort against ASU, White is averaging 19 ppg in Pac-12 play. … The Buffs are third in rebound margin in conference play, outrebounding opponents by an average of 3.3 per game.
UP NEXT: Colorado plays host to fourth-ranked UCLA in a 9 p.m. game Thursday at the Coors Events Center, and will then make it three games in a row against ranked teams with a 6:30 p.m. home contest Sunday vs. No. 25 USC.
Contact: Neill.Woelk@Colorado.edu
