The Buffalo bench looks on as the final seconds tick away in their 79-51 loss to #13 Utah. (Matt Sisneros/CU Independent)
The University of Colorado men’s basketball team went into Saturday night’s home matchup against the University of Utah with high hopes of a little revenge from their earlier loss in the season, but the outcome was quite the opposite. The Buffs dropped their 11th game this year in an ugly blowout, 79-51.
“You’ve got to give Utah some credit,” head coach Tad Boyle said. “Those guys were really, really good tonight. I told our team in the locker room that’s what a top 15 team looks like, and they played like it tonight, and they took it to us every way.”
The shooting percentages say it all. For the game, the Buffs could only shoot 29.8 percent from the field and only made one three-pointer for an 11.1 game percentage. Utah’s numbers were the complete opposite. They went 57.8 percent from the field and even better from behind the arc, going 59.1 percent and hitting 13 total threes.
Perhaps the only bright side, if any, was the return of junior forward Josh Scott, who missed the past month with back spasms. In his debut game back from the injury, Scott scored 10 points and grabbed seven boards.
But freshman guard Dominique Collier was the one to lead them all. In the best performance of his young career, Collier dropped 11 points and grabbed four rebounds.
“This is just on us,” Collier said after the game. “You got to just suck it up and play. And it all starts on defense. They executed and we didn’t on defense, and that was the key in our loss today.”
In the opening minutes of the game, the Buffs struggled to get anything going on offense without senior guard Askia Booker, who sat out with a hip injury he sustained in practice earlier in the week. Utah went up 9-0 before the Buffs managed to get on the board with a layup and one.
From there, it only got worse. The Utes went up 17-3 before the Buffs managed to cut into the lead. Nine minutes into the game, they could only shoot 8.3 percent from the field, whereas Utah shot 66.7 percent. The Buffs then responded in kind, outscoring Utah 9-1 over the next few minutes to bring it within six.
From there on, Utah kept increasing their lead as the half wore on. By the time the buzzer sounded for the break, the Buffs trailed 35-23.
Their offense didn’t help them one bit. Throughout the first 20 minutes of play, Colorado only managed to shoot 30.4 percent from the field and did not hit one of their six three-point attempts. Utah fared much better on their side of the ball, going 47.8 percent from the field and an even 50 percent from the three point range.
CU did manage to win the rebounding game, but just barely. They grabbed 17 total boards over Utah’s 16.
The Buffalo woes continued early into the second half, as the Utes dropped three more three-pointers to increase their lead to 21, 44-23. That wasn’t even the biggest deficit of the game. The home boys went down by as much as 36 points, 70-34, off of a series of turnovers and empty possessions.
Although it didn’t really get any better, the Buffs did manage the cut the lead to a final score of 79-51. With the loss, the Buffs dropped to 11-11 on the already-imploding season.
“I think it’s very surprising,” Scott said. “I don’t think any of us thought that was going to happen to us at home. We’re very good at home, and we didn’t play well. It’s embarrassing.”
The Buffs return to their home floor on Thursday, Feb. 12 to take on the California Bears at 7 p.m.
“The problem was Utah was a hell of a lot better than us in every facet: rebounding, offense, defense, passing,” said Boyle. “They got 20 assists and ten turnovers and we got five assists, nine turnovers. Not good enough.”
Contact CU Independent Sports Writer Alissa Noe at alissa.noe@colorado.edu.
