The Aftermath and Where We're Headed

[TDforTD]

I always enjoy this board but one thing I have definitely learned is that some of the posters always have their panic buttons turned on, even after wins. With that said, I understand the feeling of being lost in this big universe after Dinwiddie went down. Same feeling after Gallinari got hurt in the Dallas game last year. It just completely changes the plan.

I love that Dinwiddie could put up 5/2/3 and still make an impact on the floor. Both by leadership and defense. He's also become a James Harden for us, proving that getting to the FT line is actually a skill (without all the flopping Harden pulls too).

 

[tante]

i tried to engage JG in a Hopkins vs Spencer frosh campaign discussion - he's actively ignoring me.

yeah I don't want to get caught up in a player for player comparison, just a comparison of production. So hopefully JG doesn't neg rep me but:

 

[cubuffs85]

I love this board, but holy crap is it bi-polar (and yes, I'm as guilty of it as anyone else). To everyone freaking out, I'm genuinely confused on what you thought you would see last night. There were posters that called Spencer the "heart and soul" of this team, but still thought we'd kick ass throughout and there wouldn't be much of an adjustment period. Really? If he's that important, you don't replace him in 4 days. It's just not possible. I've also seen some (a lot?) of people bitching about the rotations last night. Don't get me wrong, I was confused by some of it too, but Tad all of a sudden has 41 minutes in every game that he now has to fill (31 from Spencer and 10 from Tre). There's going to be some mixing and matching right now. There's going to be some "who has the hot hand?". It's going to be a work in progress. Did everyone forget how the first few games of the year always have odd rotations? And that's after an entire summer of practice and a few scrimmages. This **** was thrown together in FOUR DAYS. And on top of Spencer & Tre, it's now public, but XJ has tendonitis in his knees and the team wasn't 100% positive that they were going to have him last night.

I honestly just don't know what everyone expected last night. If you ask me, I was pleasantly surprised. Tad's game plan last night was perfect if you ask me. The team had phenomenal ball movement, and I thought the defensive scheme was pretty damn smart (I'm not thrilled about the Wes & DT guarding Kyle Anderson part, but he didn't burn us too badly, so obviously the risk was worth it). I thought the bench was great. Ignore the shooting numbers at the end there, and that was one of XT's best games in a long time. He looked solid on D, he looked aggressive on offense. He finished 2-of-7, but I'm willing to say that 3 of those shots came in the last 90 seconds when we were jacking things up. DT was the most aggressive I'd seen him in months. If he can keep that up, it'll help a lot. Eli even played some solid ball. He had an ugly shot at the end of the game, but I'm willing to overlook that. He looked like the player he was pre-Kansas last year, which is what we need from him.

Ski & Josh were phenomenal. Jelly did what he's done all year, only slightly better. That's what we need. He was great. As for Ski, I honestly don't know what you can say. He shot great shots, he was efficient, and he kept the team rolling. Will he shoot 70% the rest of the season? Hell no. But there's no reason to think that Ski can't help carry us in the backcourt.

XJ, JHop & Wes did not have the best games. And they know it. XJ is bothered by the knee, so I'm willing to give him a little bit of a pass, but he's the guy we need to step up. He has the talent, he's done it before, he'll do it again. Wes... was bad. He was just bad. And he knows it. JG made a great point on the drive home that his rebounding numbers were bound to suffer as he was guarding UCLA's PG, but he didn't look great on D (that was a bad matchup for him) and he struggled on O. As long as he can go back to playing great D and rebounding, I'm fine with this. As for JHop, I actually had a feeling this game may be coming. I said something pre-game to Rugged about how I could see him forcing too much to try to prove that he was ready to fill Spencer's shoes, and that's exactly what he did. He tried to do too much. And you know what, we're gonna have 3-4 games like that from him the rest of this season. But we're also going to have 3-4 games where he DOES fill Spencer's shoes and shows why Tad is convinced he's a future star.

And Tad's not wrong on this one.

I guess I'm just struggling to see why everyone is so down on this game. We had the #25 team in the nation, a team that's a matchup nightmare for the Buffs and a team that CU has NEVER BEATEN IN PAC-12 PLAY coming in to our gym 4 days after our best player and a key bench reserve went down for the season. We hung with them through ~30-35 minutes before they pulled away late. What part of this is surprising? Why is everyone so down all of a sudden on this?

The Buffs are going to win Saturday. They're going to lose next week in both Arizona and Arizona State. But they're going to come together. We're not going to know what we have on this team until Saturday, February 1st when we host Utah. By that point, things will have settled, guys will have figured things out, and the staff will have put things together. This isn't going to be the dream season we thought it was going to be. It's going to be ugly. It's going to be #TadBall. It's going to be B1G basketball. And instead of the drama of "will we be a top 4 seed?" on Selection Sunday, we're going to be nervous about even making the tournament. But this team will figure it out, and they will be dancing. And I'm really hoping that everyone just sits back and realizes that the next two weeks are a new training camp, and we need to be patient. We don't know a lot about this team right now. We will on February 2nd. Wait until then to decide what's going on.

Enjoyed this post and some very good points. It's tough for many longtime Buffs fans finally thinking this could be a "special" season. I think it's become much harder to get to the Sweet 16 with the chance at a deep run possibly, but there's no reason it can't be a very good year by typical Buffs standards atleast.

From my experience on multiple message boards and other forms of social media -- not just here -- fans typically oversensationalize a single game with such words as "this game will tell us the season." Really? This one game right after the most devastating injury in CU Buffs hoops history? As if we had to win tonight or else. Even with Spencer last night, the UCLA game would've been no gimme. They've always caused us problems and they're a pretty good team this year.

Beat USC. I like to hold out hope for the UofA game, but yeah that's probably a stretch. I'm not giving up on beating ASU, atleast right now.

One game at a time.

 

[cubuffs85]

Great post, very solid and accurate points.

Above all else, the crowd let the team down last night. Body language may have been an issue late in the game, but I'm not sure if anything could have gotten the first 20 rows out of their damn seats.

Full disclosure, I was at a bar without sound. I think it's hard for the crowd to get up when they aren't being inspired. Yeah, I get that the players feed off the crowd, but it's hard to fake this.

 

[cubuffs85]

I'm down, but not on the team. There were signs of encouragement last night. UCLA might have beaten us w/o the injuries, they just continue to be a bad matchup for us. I just hope that the students continue to bring it.

That's a big concern of mine is the crowd support, now that the perception that this season won't be as good as we once thought.

 

[Goose]

That's a big concern of mine is the crowd support, now that the perception that this season won't be as good as we once thought.

Didn't help that there was no dance squad and only five total cheerleaders last night. Whole atmosphere was weird.

 

[L Buff]

Didn't help that there was no dance squad and only five total cheerleaders last night. Whole atmosphere was weird.

I was there, and thought the crowd was pretty loud and supportive in the 1st half. In the second, after several missed layups and put-backs, TOs, and getting outfought on the boards ... the air went out of the crowd. It was frustrating to watch. But it still responded when the Buffs showed any signs of life.

 

[SuperiorBuff]

Didn't help that there was no dance squad and only five total cheerleaders last night. Whole atmosphere was weird.

Kansas refused to let their spirit squads attend nationals. They were told that they had to be at the ****bailer game.

 

[seattlebuff]

Didn't help that there was no dance squad and only five total cheerleaders last night. Whole atmosphere was weird.

Maybe we can find someone in the dance squad who can hit an open jump shot.

 

[L Buff]

Nice, positive ESPN article.

When ascendant teams suddenly lose their best players to exploded knees, they typically -- and how could you not? -- wear that news on their sleeves.

Subsequent games become sluggish, emotionally drained affairs. Zoned-out players shuffle through the motions. Blowouts ensue. Announcers file their laments. Counterfactuals are dreamed and dismissed. Eulogies are read. It takes time to come to terms with how quickly and randomly your season can change, and even longer -- weeks, even -- to realize there’s no use yielding to circumstance. The interim can be ugly.

To Colorado’s everlasting credit, Thursday’s 69-56 loss to UCLA wasn’t like that at all. The Buffaloes were tenacious and engaged, physical and focused; they held one of the most talented offensive groups in the country to just under a point per possession and just 26-of-66 from the field.

And they still lost, because of the sheer obvious fact that star guard Spencer Dinwiddie and his torn ACL were sitting on the sideline watching.

If someone else already posted this ... too bad, I'm not about to read through all the post-mortem threads (and particular the one started by that troll "buffs233") ... why do any of you even bother to respond to him?

 

[jcatcher]

I was there, and thought the crowd was pretty loud and supportive in the 1st half. In the second, after several missed layups and put-backs, TOs, and getting outfought on the boards ... the air went out of the crowd. It was frustrating to watch. But it still responded when the Buffs showed any signs of life.

I was there too and thought the crowd was fine for most of the game. It did quit on the team late in the second half during this sequence:

12:22 Ski made a two-point jumper to make the score 49-43 UCLA. Then UCLA did this: Miss, miss, miss, miss, turnover, miss, miss, missed free throw, made free throw at 7:34. Five minutes of ineptness by UCLA. It's as if Alford went over to Tad Boyle and said "We're going to give you the game now. Just take it." How did CU respond? Turnover, miss, miss, turnover, miss, miss front end of a one-and-one, miss, miss free throw, made free throw. One freaking point on eight empty possessions by UCLA. This was where we really missed Spencer. Even in the games where he forgets that the point of the game is to score more points than the other team, he usually wakes up in situations like this and hits a three or drives and gets fouled and makes the free throws.

It actually went on for a couple of more minutes until Josh made a dunk with 3:55 left, but by then the crowd was already leaving. A sad sight was the fan cam at the under four timeout and they couldn't get a shot without seeing streams of fans going up the stairs in the background.

 

[mattrob]

Very well said Goose. Reading the comments after the Washington game, it was obvious many were under-estimating the loss of Spencer, and the reaction of some after the UCLA loss was pretty disappointing too. I do think J-Hop and DT look poised to breakout very soon. If/when they do, I like our chances to make some noise down the stretch.

 

[89BUFF89]

I expected struggles 1st game without spencer, and UCLA has had our number, but giving up that many offensive boards to them was a killer...15 extra possessions !

 

[pwbuffan]

Just my two cents but the men will make the NIT a very slim shot to make the NCAA and the women will not make any tourney. Boyle is a good coach and Lappe is not.

 

[cubuffs85]

Just my two cents but the men will make the NIT a very slim shot to make the NCAA and the women will not make any tourney. Boyle is a good coach and Lappe is not.

Don't know too much about the women's team, but I have to think they'll atleast make the WNIT. Wazzu is undefeated so far in P12 play.

 

[CVilleBuff]

Having nightmares of Virginia in 2002. Momentum rising for 3 years, Gillen was a genius coach, rose to 4th in the nation in January and then injuries and chemistry issues hit and an epic collapse led to a mere 17 wins and missing the Dance. Never recovered from it, the magic was gone and a few years later Gillen was out.

 

[BuffG]

Having nightmares of Virginia in 2002. Momentum rising for 3 years, Gillen was a genius coach, rose to 4th in the nation in January and then injuries and chemistry issues hit and an epic collapse led to a mere 17 wins and missing the Dance. Never recovered from it, the magic was gone and a few years later Gillen was out.

That's heartbreaking but did that team rank 337th in experience? I'm sure you know that's where the Buffs ranked pre ACL. I'm curious as to what their rank is now?

We've been incredibly blessed with freshmen recruits who were poised enough to have huge freshmen years. Burks was the Big 12 frosh of the year, Roberson was so effective his frosh yr that Ken Pom dedicated a post to him, Dinwiddie was a starting G for our only conference title in 40 years, Booker was a near perfect fit for the 6th man, and Scott+ XJ were mostly effective starters on a team that got an at-large bid to the Dance.

Also been noted by many that we've been blessed with good health. There's nothing more that a strong coach of an historically subpar program can hope for than hitting on 1 or 2 freshmen each year who are solid starters as well as have good luck with health.

It hasn't clicked for anyone in the '13 class yet. Seen flashes from all of them. I wish J Hop & Gordon in particular would be more consistent by now. Hasn't happened. But how much of that frustration comes from the lofty standard that's been set?

I saw Scott take that lead role. He was more aggressive than ever. Booker was always a leader but his game doesn't change. Just waiting on Gordon/J Hop/Thomas to take that next step. No reason why they can't still make the dance if that happens soon.

This is not a program killing event like what happened to UVA. Its a painful delay on a program changing season. It's a fast forward on one of the youngest and deepest squads for seasons to come.