Colorado men’s basketball coach Tad Boyle sounded more like the leader of a 1-8 team than an 8-1 team after losing to Colorado State last week.
The Buffaloes, who host UTSA (4-5) Saturday in Boulder, Colo., came storming from behind with a 21-4 run to take the lead against the Rams with four minutes to play.
Colorado State finished by outscoring Colorado by nine to win 91-86.
“Nobody listened to me,” Boyle told the Denver Gazette. “Nobody listened to our scouting report, I can tell you that. Nobody executed the game plan. You let a team make 18 threes, it’s gonna be hard to win, no matter who you play, where you play.
“We shoot (62%), you score 86 points in an opponent’s building and that’s good enough to win if you can guard anything or anybody, just a little bit, but we didn’t do it and it’s really frustrating. We’ll never get this opportunity back again and we’re gonna have to live with this.”
The Buffaloes are averaging 88.4 points per game and are hitting 41% of their 3-point attempts.
Isaiah Johnson leads scorers with 15.3 per game and Sebastian Rancik adds 13 points and 5.6 rebounds per game.
Budding star Bangot Dak has 7.2 rebounds per game and 11.7 points.
Offense is not what is worrying Boyle, however. He doesn’t like the 78.4 points the Buffaloes are giving up a game.
“Now, maybe the boy who cried wolf knows something,” Boyle said. “Maybe this will wake us up. I don’t know. Time will tell. Our standard is six or fewer made threes for a game — for a game. They had 10 (threes) in the first half and eight in the second half. I don’t know what to say.”
UTSA is coming off a 97-55 loss to No. 12 Alabama on Dec. 7. The Roadrunners trailed 56-17 at halftime, but were only outscored 41-38 in the second half.
“For us, it is not going to get any easier,” coach Austin Claunch said. “We have a couple of Power 4s coming up. We don’t have to go back to the drawing board, but we need to build on what we did in the second half.”
The Roadrunners are led by senior guard Jamir Simpson with 18.8 points per game and freshman forward Kaidon Rayfield, who is averaging 7.1 rebounds.
–Field Level Media
