Colorado Basketball Successfully Beats Every Ranked Team in the PAC-12

Colorado Basketball Successfully Beats Every Ranked Team in the PAC-12

January 10, 2018 Off By tailgatesports

There were 9 upsets in Week 9 where an unranked team beat a top 25 team, and Colorado was responsible to 2 of those, and they happened in the span of just 3 days. NC State beat #2 Duke, Providence beat the always overrated #5 Xavier, LSU beat #11 Texas A&M, Auburn beat #22 Arkansas, Georgia Tech beat #15 Miami, Florida beat #11 Texas A&M, and Colorado beat #14 Arizona AND #4 Arizona State (which is practically every D1 team in the state besides GCU). After having a very shaky start to the season in out of conference play, which saw Colorado losing to extremely weak programs in San Diego, Colorado State, and Iowa, the Buffs quickly bounced back by beating every ranked team in the PAC-12 with back-to-back victories against top 15 teams (first time in program history that CU has done this). However, is it safe to say that the AZ wins were a pivotal moment in the 2017-18 season, or was it just a lucky run for the Buffs?

For starters, Colorado definitely has the right man commanding the Colorado squad. Tad Boyle has been the head coach of the Buffs since 2010, and since then the Buffs have seen some very notable accomplishments. In fact, I honestly believe that the Tad Boyle era is the greatest era in Colorado Basketball history, and that includes Chauncey Billups’ time as a Buff. Since Tad Boyle took the job in Boulder, the Buffs have reached the the NCAA Tournament 4 times, with 3 of those occurring in consecutive years. They won the PAC-12 Tournament in 2012, which was the first PAC-12 Tournament win in program history, and they reached the Round of 32 for the first time since 1997. This of course doesn’t include the 4 players currently in the NBA that Tad Boyle helped develop during their time in the Buffs program.

It’s clear that if Colorado becomes a top program in the country it will be under the reign of Coach Boyle, but does CU have the the right squad this season to completely bounce back from a rough start and make yet another solid run at the tournament this March? Luckily for them, even though the Buffs lost their star guard in Derrick White to the NBA this past offseason, the PAC-12 itself also lost a ton of talent, as only two teams are currently ranked in the top 25 and not a single PAC-12 team received any votes to join ASU and UofA in the top 25 in Week 10 of the NCAA season. A weaker conference definitely leaves a huge window for the Buffs to fight their way into the top 25, but they’ll need consistent, dominate performances from their core of freshman and upperclassmen leaders.

McKinley Wright IV has definitely proven that he is the star freshman that the Buffs needed to replace Derrick White. Wright IV is one of the most recent additions to the Buffs squad, and since coming to Boulder he’s been averaging a solid 16.2 ppg and 5.3 apg. If he can come out every night and run the backcourt efficiently with impressive senior George King and on-the-rise Junior Namon Wright as the 3 top scorers for the Buffs then I believe that Colorado can finish the regular season as a top 5 team in a weak PAC-12 Conference. They’ll also have to rely on freshman Dallas Walton dominating the paint, and even sophomore forward Lucas Siewart to continue to shoot the 3 ball well late in the 2nd, maintaining his 38.5% shooting percentage from beyond the arc, as CU’s lights out stretch four, but I honestly think that all of this is possible, especially since they just got their highest ranked win in program history since 2003, when the beat #3 Texas. Their utter lack of road wins this season definitely doesn’t look good at all right now, but if they can also turn that around tonight with a win against USC in California tonight, then we’re are definitely looking at a legitimate Colorado team much better than the one we saw during the out of conference play early this season.

 

 

Written by Erik Clark

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