Colorado head coach Tad Boyle talks to his team during a timeout of a first-round Pac-12 Tournament game between Colorado and Southern California on Wednesday, March 12, 2014 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. (Kai Casey/CU Independent)
Men’s basketball beat writer Tommy Wood chronicles Colorado hoops.
Tad Boyle stalks from mid-court to the paint. His whistle echoes shrilly throughout the nearly empty Coors Events Center. Practice lurches to a halt because Colorado’s fifth-year head coach sees a bad switch in one of the two separate five-on-five drills the Buffaloes are running.
Bad switches in practice are unacceptable, because bad switches in games give the opponent a timeshare at the rim. So the team gets a teaching moment. The culprits — Wes Gordon, Eli Stalzer, George King and Dom Collier — learn while doing pushups.
“We have to get better at this,” Boyle says.
That, and more.
The Buffs ended their 2013-2014 season with a blur of bad switches and lame-duck pick-and-rolls. It has been 208 days since Colorado last played a basketball game and 215 since it last won. The Buffs lost their final two games by 20 to Arizona and by 29 to Pittsburgh — games that underscored Colorado’s struggles against athletic, aggressive teams.
The only number that matters right now is 33. Thirty-three days remain until the Buffs tip off against Drexel University to kick off the 2014-2015 season. When they tip off against Drexel, Boyle says in practice, memories of Pitt go out the window.
The Buffs will bring back all the major contributors from last year’s team, with a couple major additions. They are better this year, no doubt, but Colorado has not entered a season with so many questions in Boyle’s tenure.
How well will Askia Booker’s transition to point guard work?
What will touted freshman Dom Collier’s role be?
How much have Jaron Hopkins, Tre’Shaun Fletcher and Wes Gordon, who played big minutes as freshmen, improved?
What are Josh Scott’s NBA prospects?
“Dance, Ralphie, Dance” will try to answer those questions. This series will provide the storytelling, analysis and perspective that you expect and only the CUI can give.
Check back every Monday for insights from practice, conversations with players and coaches and detailed breakdowns of the week’s games. This is a fluid experiment. Tell us what you want covered, Buffs fans, because we want to cover what you want to know.
This will be a fun season, and it should be a good one.
S’ko Buffs.
A few observations from the first two weeks of practice:
- Askia Booker’s game doesn’t look any different. His shooting stroke is pure but inconsistent, and his decision-making is as questionable as ever. In a full scrimmage, he ignored an open man in both corners on a fast break and shot a floater in front of three defenders. Still, Booker, Colorado’s only scholarship senior, has been a teacher to the younger players; after Boyle taught some offensive sets, Booker broke them down in greater detail. But nothing would help his teammates more than dropping out of the J.R. Smith school of shot selection.
- Tory Miller is a freshman…and the biggest guy on the team. He might be the biggest human being I’ve seen in person. With college weight rooms, he could be the next Patrick Young. Every time Miller dunks, I think he’s going to tear the rim down. I will bet real cash money that he will break a backboard during his Colorado career. Miller isn’t just a bruiser. He’s a natural on the glass. Offensive rebounds just find their way into his hands. He is relentless in the paint and his baseline jumper has potential. Don’t be surprised if Miller gets heavier minutes than fellow freshman Dom Collier.
- Eli Stalzer finally, mercifully, shaved his mustache. That thing was an abomination.
- Xavier Johnson has reworked his shooting stroke, and it looks fantastic. His freshman and sophomore years he had a jerky, low release that looked a little too much like Shawn Marion’s. It didn’t hurt his three-point shooting — he shoots 39 percent from deep— but it showed at the free-throw line. Johnson is a 58 percent free-throw shooter and he always seems to miss at the worst times. Now he has a higher, smoother, quicker release. It will only help him as a shooter. Johnson is also a noticeably better ball-handler. With these improvements, his game is looking more and more like NBA Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard’s. He might be Colorado’s best pro prospect.
Contact CUIndependent Staff Writer Tommy Wood at Thomas.c.wood@colorado.edu
