Senior guard Askia Booker drives past a Georgia defender. Booker had a game-high 20 points in the Buffs 57-64 loss to Georgia. (Nigel Amstock/CU Independent)
There was a drought this morning in Athens, Ga. It was prolonged and catastrophic.
This drought wasn’t a weather phenomenon — the humidity there hovered above 50 percent as the University of Colorado tipped off against the University of Georgia Bulldogs. No, this drought happened on the floor of the Stegeman Coliseum, lasted seven minutes, seven seconds, and left the Buffaloes’ hopes for victory withered and dead.
That scoreless stretch, which spanned the final four minutes of the first half and the first three of the second, helped the Bulldogs open up a 16-point lead that they would never relinquish on their way to a 64-57 win.
Colorado has yet to win on the road this season. This final margin wasn’t as lopsided as the Buffs’ 56-33 loss in Laramie, but the game was no less ugly, the path no less painful. The Buffs shot just 36 percent overall, just 12 percent from deep, turned the ball over 13 times and assisted on only six of their 21 buckets.
Georgia blitzed Colorado’s usually stingy defense early. Junior guard Charles Mann hit a pair of threes, and senior forward Marcus Thornton feasted in the post against any defender the Buffs threw at him. Colorado stayed level for much of the first half; junior forward Josh Scott got the Buffs started with a smooth catch-and-shoot baseline jumper, and freshman guard Dom Collier and sophomore forward Tre’Shaun Fletcher got nice transition looks.
But there were signs of trouble from the start — Georgia effectively neutralized Scott in the paint for the entire first half. They forced him to catch the ball on the wings, where he is less effective, and sent immediate help when he did get it on the block. Junior forward Xavier Johnson was still hobbled by the leg injury that kept him out of Wednesday’s game against San Francisco. He bricked a couple of early threes, and hit just two of the seven he attempted.
The Bulldogs played a deliberate game and that took the Buffs out of their comfort zone. Colorado’s offense was discombobulated, its ball-handling and passing sloppy. It is at its best when playing a fast, high-possession game; when the game slowed down, the Buffs tried to win off the dribble in the half court. When they try to win off the dribble in the halfcourt, they lose.
The drought started after Johnson hit a three to tie the game at 22. Thornton tipped his own miss. Sophomore guard JJ Frazier stroked a three, then senior guard Askia Booker threw a pass out of bounds as ESPN revealed college football’s first playoff bracket. Colorado trailed by 12 at halftime.
Scott turned his offensive game around after the break. He controlled the glass and drew fouls on the way to 18 points and 11 rebounds, but struggled to defend basic pick-and-rolls — all of the Buffs did. They switched, they hedged, they got burned. Mann and junior guard Kenny Gaines got to the rim without resistance. Still, Georgia wasn’t quite as hot in the second half as it was in the first, and Colorado inched back into the game seemingly despite itself.
The Buffs cut the lead to single digits when Johnson went coast to coast after a devastating Scott block. That was the only glimpse Colorado showed of their deadly transition game. It played lethargic and uninspired basketball. Once, the Buffs swung the ball around the arc for 33 seconds before Fletcher airballed a floater as the shot clock expired.
Colorado’s comeback, such as it was, came mostly from the free-throw line. Scott hit six of seven at the stripe, and Booker was perfect from it. Booker had a decent game — 7-of-19 shooting with 20 points — but he missed all five threes he attempted. He and Scott made four straight from the line, the Johnson hit a three to cut Georgia’s lead to six with slightly more than a minute left. But the Buffs cooled off after that — as if they ever heated up — and the Bulldogs iced the game with free throws.
Colorado mercifully returns to Boulder for its next game, Wednesday against Colorado State, but the Coors Event Center won’t improve this team’s passing or ball security, nor will it mitigate the damage this loss did to the Buffs’ season — they could ill afford to lose one non-conference game, let alone two. But Colorado is a markedly better offensive team there, and after Sunday’s drought the friendly confines of the CEC might be just what the Buffs need to make it rain.
Contact Men’s Basketball Beat Writer Tommy Wood at thomas.c.wood@colorado.edu.
