Despite the loss of point guard Spencer Dinwiddie (25), Colorado has continued to play well. (Isaiah J. Downing-USA TODAY Sports)
By Rick Clark
LAS VEGAS — The Colorado Buffaloes have had a roller-coaster ride of a season.
They had won 22 games coming into Thursday’s Pac-12 Tournament quarterfinal against Cal, but have had a few bumps in the road to get over to get to where they are now.
Colorado started the season on fire, winners of 10-of-11 and were the team many expected to be Arizona’s main challenger for the Pac-12 title.
But injuries change things in an instant.
On Jan. 12, Buffaloes star playmaker Spencer Dinwiddie — who had been a big reason Colorado started the season as it did — went down with a season-ending knee injury.
It was a huge blow for a team that had such high expectations, and the wheels seemingly came off the Buffaloes’ bus.
After losing to Washington in the game Dinwiddie went down, the Buffaloes lost three of their next four to drop them into the middle of the Pac-12 standings. Coach Tad Boyle thought that the team was mentally over the injury to Dinwiddie after its only win in that five-game stretch, a thumping of bottom-feeding USC. The team took a pair of losses on its trip to Arizona, and then found itself in a three-game home stretch.
The ultimate catalyst was an overtime win against Utah on Feb. 1 — a win that helped breath new life into the team as it was able to string together a few more wins to get to an overall record of 10-8 in conference play.
A big reason the team started to get back on track was because of the play of three players — Josh Scott, (14.5 ppg, 8.8 rpg), Xavier Johnson (12.2 ppg, 6.0 rpg), and Askia Booker (13.7 ppg, 3.5 apg).
All were expected to have big roles for Colorado, but each had to step up a little bit more after the injury as the post-Dinwiddie era for the Buffs arrived sooner than anybody expected or wanted.
“We were planning on playing next year without Spencer,” Boyle said. “It’s just next year came a little quicker.”
What’s more, they salvaged the current season and — barring a Selection Sunday shocker — will play into the NCAA Tournament. That was probably true no matter what happened at the MGM Grand this week. Thursday’s win over Cal, however, ended all doubt, while placing the Golden Bears on a very uncomfortable seat for Sunday’s reveal.
Now, it’s all gravy from here on out for the Buffs, but their goals remain in front of them. The team that started the season shooting for the Pac-12 title still has a chance, no matter how small.
They play top-seeded Arizona on Friday, and though there’s simply no reason to think the Buffs can pull it off, writing off Colorado at this point would clearly be premature.
