Colorado’s Josh Scott (40) tries to grab a rebound during last season’s home game against No. 7 Arizona on Feb 22, 2014. Despite their loss at home last season, the Buffs will look to beat the Wildcats this Thursday at 7:00pm in Coors Event Center. (Kai Casey/CU Independent)
Askia Booker doesn’t have time to reflect, not normally, and especially not two days before the No. 7 Arizona Wildcats bring their suffocating defense to the Coors Event Center. But Tuesday wasn’t normal. Booker can count on his fingers the number of games and practices he has left as a Colorado Buffalo. So, after practice, he stood outside the Buffs’ locker room, his step hobbled by a lingering hip injury, his voice hoarse from pneumonia, and reflected.
“When I was a freshman,” he said, “I thought, Oh, I have another year. I have two more years. I have three more years.”
Now he has five more games. Anything beyond the opening round of the Pac-12 Tournament is borrowed time. So Booker reflected on his senior year, which has been his best individual season but will also probably be the only year that his team will miss the NCAA Tournament.
“We’re losing,” he said. “Everything seems slower. It’s like God making me suffer. I’ll always say my senior year was crap. But that’s just reality, man. I’m so thankful, still. If we lost all our games this season, I’d be thankful for this wonderful school, wonderful coaching staff.”
Booker reflected on his teammates, who he led, carried and frustrated.
“You have to be prepared, number one, in the offseason, for your body to last 30 games,” he said. “And then, number two, is you have to believe in your work and you have to carry it out throughout the season. This year, we haven’t done that. We haven’t been consistent, including myself.”
Then, Booker reflected on the teammate who isn’t there.
“Spencer was my right-hand man,” he said. “If he wasn’t on, I was on. If I wasn’t on, he was. And if we were both on, there’s no way we were losing. But it’s not like that this year. I miss him. We don’t have another player of that caliber, or who had that will to compete. So, sometimes it is frustrating looking to your left and to your right and begging for somebody to step up with you or push you to another level. He would grab me by my jersey and tell me to pull my head out my butt. And I knew right then and there that he needed me.”
As Booker reflected, his coach looked forward — past Arizona, past the Pac-12 Tournament and whatever postseason bracket Colorado might fall into — to next season and the hope that it will end this four-month nightmare.
“I’d be lying if I said I haven’t thought about it,” Tad Boyle said. “But out of respect to Ski and Kevin Nelson and Geoff Bates, our two walk-ons, it’s not something that I’m talking to the team about, but in my mind I know there’s some things that are starting to already turn. But, that being said, I have not in any way given up on this season and what this team can accomplish.”
Between the past and the future lies Arizona. The last time the Buffs played the Wildcats was a microcosm of Colorado’s season. Josh Scott and Xavier Johnson were injured, Booker dropped 30 points, then a career high, and the Buffs lost by 14. That night in the desert, Booker scored more points and made more shots than all of his teammates combined.
And that is nothing compared against Arizona’s last visit to Boulder, which was Colorado’s Waterloo. It was senior night, College GameDay came to campus for the first time, and eventual NBA lottery pick Aaron Gordon broke the hearts of 11,000 people in the CEC. So, not losing by 27 this year is a low bar. Boyle set it much higher.
“I watched (No. 8) Kansas play at Kansas State last night,” he said. “And I saw K-State, who had lost seven of eight games coming into that game, and watching them play and watching the energy and the atmosphere in that arena was electric. That’s a team that had lost seven of eight games, and you would have never known that by the way they played last night. No matter what happens to us I want us to play with that energy and that passion.”
Energy and passion won’t defeat Colorado’s nemesis, though, scoring inside will. The Buffs practiced finishing through contact Tuesday — assistant coaches hit players with pads as they went through layup lines. Colorado will take a lot of hits from Arizona’s aggressive defense. The Wildcats’ ball-screen traps have smothered the Buffs’ offense in previous matchups, and it’s nearly impossible to shoot at the rim without getting thumped by Kaleb Tarczewski, Arizona’s junior center.
Tarczewski isn’t particularly fast or athletic, nor is he overly skilled or polished, but he is seven feet tall and weighs 235 pounds — and against Colorado, which shot abysmally in the paint its last two games, that is enough to amply protect the rim. He’s also shielded by wings Stanley Johnson and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, who are long, athletic, technically sound defenders. They can each guard multiple positions, and that stifling versatility has kept the Wildcats at the top of the Pac-12 defensive leaderboard.
“A lot of weapons, a lot of athleticism,” Boyle said. “They’re relentless. Their starting five is as good a defensive team as there is in the country in my opinion. Rondae Hollis-Jefferson is an elite-level defender. Stanley Johnson is as good a freshman as there is in the country.”
Arizona is second in the conference in scoring defense, third in field goal percentage defense and third in turnovers forced. The Wildcats derive the best parts of their offense from their defense — they lead the Pac-12 in scoring largely because they get out in transition so often and are almost unstoppable when they run. Johnson and Hollis-Jefferson can get to the rim at will on the break, and Arizona’s shooters — Elliot Pitts and Gabe York — get wide-open looks.
The Wildcats’ offense is significantly less deadly in the half-court, where they stagnate and their lack of spacing becomes a liability. Arizona doesn’t get consistent outside shooting from anyone other than Johnson, Pitts and York — no one respects Hollis-Jefferson’s jumper, or those of point guard T.J. McConnell and power forward Brandon Ashley. Because Pitts and York can’t create shots for themselves, the Wildcats’ half-court offense often devolves into Johnson trying to make something from nothing.
Johnson, who should be a lottery pick if he declares for the NBA draft, torched Colorado for a career-high 22 points when the Buffs played the Wildcats in November, and helped foul Wes Gordon out and kept Dustin Thomas and Tory Miller confined to the bench with foul trouble. Colorado’s frontcourt will be deeper with Scott and Xavier Johnson healthy enough to play, but it’s still in a tough position — Stanley Johnson is third in the Pac-12 in free-throw attempts and he excels at creating contact.
Scott’s return is key for Colorado — he’s not healthy, and he won’t be this season, but he can play. He can’t use his usual array of post moves, but he is still a good rim protector and he has cleaned the glass like a maniac since he returned. Tarczewski is an awful rebounder for his size, and Scott has outplayed him in the past.
The Buffs are as whole as they will be this season, but Arizona’s losses this year have come by a combined nine points. Beating the Wildcats is a herculean task, and that is why Booker reflected only for eight minutes in front of the locker room.
“I have a team, a young team, that I still have to deal with every day, and we have to continue to battle,” he said. “We have a top-10 team coming in our building on Thursday and that’s where my mind is right now.”
That is why Boyle looked forward to next season but still believes that something can happen this season.
“We’ve learned, with the conference tournament, anything can happen,” Boyle said. “I believe in this team as much today as I did in the beginning of the season.”
Booker can’t reminisce and Boyle can’t look ahead because they know that today’s challenges don’t care about the past or the future. There are still games to play.
Colorado takes on no.7 Arizona Thursday night at home in the Coors Events Center, the game tips off at 7 p.m. and will be broadcast on ESPN.
Contact CU Independent Sports Staff Writer Tommy Wood at thomas.c.wood@colorado.edu.
