The Buffs fell to the Ducks 73-60 in Oregon on Feb. 18, 2015. (Kai Casey/CU Independent)
No one thought that Colorado and Oregon would be where they are today. In October, the Buffs were picked to finish third in the Pac-12, the Ducks eighth. Four months later, they’ve swapped spots, and Oregon proved why with a 73-60 win that felt twice as emphatic as the final score.
Senior guard Joseph Young, the Pac-12’s leading scorer, dropped 23 points and dished out six assists for the Ducks, and junior forward Dwayne Benjamin had 11 points and 13 rebounds. Askia Booker led Colorado with 20 points, and Josh Scott pulled in a career-high 17 rebounds, but they combined to shoot just 9-of-27 from the field. Wes Gordon added 14 points on 6-of-7 shooting. He was the only Buff to shoot better than 40 percent. The Buffs shot 35 percent as a team, 11 percent from deep, committed 16 turnovers and had only six assists.
Colorado raced out to an 11-4 lead behind a good transition play from Booker and solid offensive rebounding. The Buffs looked poised to take over when Oregon freshman forward Jordan Bell injured his ankle — without Bell on the court, the undersized Ducks had little rim protection. Getting to the rim wasn’t Colorado’s problem, though. Finishing there was.
There were cracks even during the Buffs’ brief lead. Oregon’s aggressive defense trapped Colorado along the baseline and forced the Buffs to make risky passes; Colorado often has trouble completing simple ones. The Ducks started to get opportunities in transition, and Young scored seven consecutive points to start a 24-4 Oregon run. Then Bell returned and blocked two shots. It was like the second half against Wyoming — the Buffs couldn’t hit from anywhere, and the Ducks seemed to run off of every miss. Every miss they could gather, that is; Colorado grabbed 20 offensive rebounds, including 12 in the first half, but the Buffs only converted six of them into second-chance points.
Oregon scored well in the half-court, too, which it isn’t usually good at. Colorado’s pick-and-roll defense was sloppy — the Buffs’ bigs hedged, but there was often no help on the roller.
By halftime, Colorado trailed 39-22 and it was shooting 28 percent from the field. Their woes alleviated somewhat after the break, and they inched their way closer. First, the Buffs used an 8-0 run to cut the lead to nine points. Booker didn’t shoot well, but he was aggressive, and he got to the line for 12 foul shots and made 10. Every time the Buffs pushed, though, Oregon pushed back.
The Ducks stopped running in the second half, and that lack of pace infected their half-court offense — it was sluggish and ineffective. The Buffs outshot Oregon 43 percent to 24 percent after halftime, but Colorado had dug itself too deep a hole and the Ducks always did just enough to keep the Buffs at bay.
After Colorado cut the lead to nine, the Ducks shot it up to 12. Booker hit a pull-up free-throw and cut it to seven, but Bell blocked Xavier Johnson’s alley-oop on the Buffs’ next possession. Gordon made it a six-point game with a vicious dunk off of a Booker feed, but Booker aggravated his hip injury on the play and left the game. He returned almost immediately, but Oregon grew its lead back to 10. Dom Collier hit a transition layup and Xavier Johnson buried a wing three to bring Colorado within five, but the Buffs would get no closer. They didn’t make another tre in the game. The Ducks got three offensive rebounds on the next possession and pulled away by making free throws. Booker didn’t score after he returned from his injury.
So goes another ignominious chapter in this Colorado season. This one is too ironic: the Buffs, coming off of three straight NCAA tournament berths, supposedly the Pac-12’s third-best team, have been supplanted in the conference by an Oregon squad that lost six seniors to graduation, two to transfers and dismissed three players because of sexual assault allegations.
Colorado has a chance to halt the free-fall at Oregon State on Saturday at 9 p.m.
Contact Staff Writer Tommy Wood at thomas.wood@colorado.edu
