Buffs Set For Battle With In-State Rival Rams
December 01, 2017 | Men's Basketball, Neill Woelk
FORT COLLINS — As much as Colorado coach Tad Boyle would love to see his Buffs get up and down the Moby Arena floor in a hurry Saturday, it's not what he is expecting to transpire.
Rather, when the 6-0 Buffs and 3-4 Colorado State tip it off at 11 a.m. (AT&T SportsNet), Boyle expects a much slower pace. That's the kind of game Larry Eustachy's Rams love to play, and they will no doubt try to engage the Buffs in a halfcourt battle.
"We have to be able to execute in halfcourt," Boyle said. "It's much easier to slow the game down than it is to speed it up. Hopefully if we're getting stops we can run and get in transition a little bit, but we have to be ready for a knock-down, drag-out, grind-it-out game."
The Buffs have been there before with the Rams, with differing degrees of success. Two years ago, they survived a hot-shooting Rams team in the first half and overcame a 13-point halftime deficit to collect an 88-77 win in Fort Collins.
But last year, the Buffs put forth what Boyle termed a "god-awful" offensive performance and dropped a 72-58 decision in Boulder, despite holding a plus-nine rebound advantage and holding CSU to just 38.5 percent shooting from the field.
The difference in that game was Colorado's shooting. CU hit just 32.2 percent of its shots (19-for-59), which included a 3-for-19 effort from 3-point range.
"CSU will bait you into early 'threes'," Boyle said. "They want you to shoot the ball early in the shot clock. They showed great patience against us offensively. … We told our guys we can't settle for early 3s. That's what they want. If you take those early 3s and they don't go in, it's a tough deal."
Meanwhile, Boyle expects his Buffs to adhere to the program's foundational tenets.
"We have to take care of the ball, we have to contest every shot and we have to rebound the ball," Boyle said. "The third one is the most important. Limit them to one shot and we have to contest every shot. They have some good shooters that maybe aren't shooting the ball real well right now, but if we don't contest shots and some of those go in, they start getting confidence and momentum builds … We can't turn the ball over and we have to get a great shot every time, and we have to rebound the ball."
The Rams have not shot the ball well thus far this year, particularly from 3-point range. CSU is shooting just 28 percent from beyond the arc this year (41-for-146), with their main long-distance gunners, Prentiss Nixon and J.D. Paige, hitting a combined 25-for-82. That poor shooting was evident in their most recent outing, a 77-67 loss at Missouri State in which CSU hit just four of 23 tries from beyond the arc.
Overall, the Buffs haven't exactly been dead-eyes from 3-point range, hitting just 31 percent of their tries so far (37-for-118). But they have been better over the last couple of games, hitting 18 of 47 (38 percent). George King was 5-for-6 in the Buffs' win Sunday over Air Force and 3-for-6 in the previous game against Mercer.
One thing Boyle will get to see Saturday is how is young team reacts to a hostile environment. While the Buffs have played three games away from the Coors Events Center this season, they have yet to play a true road game.
Thus, it will be the first time such youngsters as McKinley Wright IV, Tyler Bey, D'Shawn Schwartz and Lazar Nikolic take the court in a real road environment.
"It will be a good test for everybody, all of our freshmen," Boyle said. "Our upperclassmen know what to expect. But for the freshmen, it will be a good test. We've had three really good practices this week."
SIEWERT UPDATE: Boyle said post player Lucas Siewert, nursing an ankle sprain that forced him to miss the last two games, has improved this week. Boyle said whether Siewert will play Saturday will likely be a "game-time" decision.
BROADCAST: The game will be televised by AT&T SportsNet Rocky Mountain with Drew Goodman and Marty Fletcher. KOA radio (850 am) will carry the game with Mark Johnson and Scott Wilke.
Contact: Neill.Woelk@Colorado.edu
