Going into Wednesday night’s home matchup against San Francisco, the University of Colorado knew the competition wouldn’t be easy. At first, it wasn’t. The Dons gained a ten-point lead midway through the first half to silence Buff fans, but then the tides turned when the altitude got to San Francisco.
After a strong start early on from the Buffs, San Francisco cut away at their lead and took it over in the first half, creating all kinds of problems for Colorado’s defense. But, after honing in on its defensive skills in the second half, Colorado managed to pull ahead and outplay the Dons in all aspects as they sealed a 72-55 victory.
“We beat a good team tonight, a well-coached team, a tough team and a talented team,” head coach Tad Boyle said. “They’re going to win some games this year and they’re a lot better than their 4-3 record. They’ve gotten better with every game this year and I think at the end of the year we’ll look back and say that San Francisco was a good win for us.”
Senior guard Askia Booker, who rediscovered his game in Sunday’s face-off against Lipscomb when he scored 18 points, outdid himself again as he led the team with 21 points, three rebounds and three assists. 15 of his points came solely from three-point shots.
“It’s just building off of the last game,” Booker said. “I’ve been out before the game for two hours, and I’ve been out shooting a lot of shots… I’ve just been trying to clear my mind and get ready for the game.”
Boyle said he always knew Booker had it in him.
“That’s the guy we see in practice every day,” Boyle said. “His teammates know how good he is, his coaches know how good he is and he knows how good he is. I thought he came out and forced a few things in the first half, but got into the flow of the game and played within himself down the stretch.”
For the night, the Buffs shot well as they went 27-53 (50.9 percent) from the field and 9-18 from beyond the arc. On the other side of the ball, after a strong defensive effort in the second half, Colorado held San Francisco to 24-51 from the field (47.1 percent) and 7-20 from the three-point range (35 percent). Six of those three-pointers came in the first half.
In their sixth game of the season, the Buffs started out strong against their West Coast competitors with a 7-0 run. But it didn’t take long to for San Francisco to respond. Four minutes after their first points, the Dons outscored the Buffs 11-2 to take their first lead of the game.
For the rest of the first half, the Dons held onto the lead after outplaying the Buffs on every front. With just under 10 minutes left in the half, San Francisco increased its lead to 10 before the Buffs managed to cut away at the lead and get back in it.
The Dons came out firing on all cylinders, honing in on Colorado’s biggest weakness: perimeter defense. In the first 20 minutes of play alone, the Dons went 14-26 from the field (53.8 percent) and 6-13 from beyond the arc (46.2 percent). They even outperformed the Buffs in arguably the strongest aspect of their game, grabbing 19 total rebounds to Colorado’s 13.
Clearly, the elevation didn’t bother them. At first.
The Buffs, on the other hand, weren’t as precise from the field. In the first half, they only shot 13-32 from the field (40.6 percent) and 4-12 from the three-point range (33.3 percent). Due to the lack of efficiency on offense, the Buffs trailed 34-32 by the time the buzzer sounded for halftime.
Once the second half started, it didn’t take long for the Buffs to regain the lead on their home court. In the first four minutes, Askia Booker knocked down a pair of consecutive threes to complement a layup from Wesley Gordon that gave the Buffs a 40-36 edge.
The Dons never regained the lead after that.
“We just had to pick it up, we knew we had to pick it up,” sophomore guard/forward Dustin Thomas said. “We knew we came out kind of slow, and we didn’t want another team coming in here and giving it to us in the first half, so we just picked it up at the end of the first half and brought it back in the second.”
In the second half, the Buffs stepped up their game and stole the show, by far outplaying the Dons in the second half on defense and on offense. In part two of Wednesday night’s face-off, the Buffs improved their shooting percentages to 14-21 (66.7 percent) from the field and an unusual 5-6 from the three-point range (83.3 percent).
On the other end of the floor, the Buffs tightened their defense and held the Dons to 10-25 from the field (40.0 percent) and 1-7 from downtown (14.3 percent). San Francisco still won the rebounding battle, grabbing 14 boards to CU’s 11.
“Well we’re still looking for the 40-minute game I guess, right?” Boyle said. “We had a little flip-flop tonight. We played not as well in the first half but certainly better in the second half, which we’ll take that. I do think that the first half had a lot to do with what San Francisco did.”
By the end of the night, the Buffs showed their sea level foes they weren’t ready to get shown up at home and amassed as much as a 19-point lead late in the second half before sealing the deal with a 17-point victory.
The Buffs return to the court on Sunday, Dec. 7 in their second away game. Colorado will take on the Georgia Bulldogs in Athens, GA at 10:00 a.m. MST. The game will be televised on the SEC network.
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Alissa Noe at alissa.noe@colorado.edu.
