Quick Post: Thoughts on the win over UW

Well, I sure wasn't expecting that.  87-69 with a bullet!

A feisty crowd got a good show last night, and the Buffs are off to a 2-0 start to Pac-12 play.  From: the BDC

Defense had to keep the Buffs in the game early when they started the evening out stuck in neutral.  Once the train got rolling, however, the Buffs finished the game +27 after falling behind 14-5 in the opening minutes.  The Buffs held UW to 37% shooting, 20% from behind the arc, and held the Huskies just under their scoring average away from Seattle (72 pts per game away from home before last night).  That's the level of defensive effort I've come to expect from a Coach Boyle led team.

A scrappy defensive effort from the Buffs kept them in the game.  From: the BDC

It was the Buffs offense I wasn't expecting.  After early struggles against the tight man defense from Washington, CU buckled down and found some good looks to open up the floor.  CU ended up shooting damn near 50% on the night (57% from deep) and had five players score in double-figures.  They even shot 89% from the charity stripe, keeping any hopes of a UW come back far from reach.  A fantastic offensive output from CU.

The best individual performance of the night came from Carlon Brown, who had a few SportsCenter worthy plays and 18 points that keyed a big CU run to take over the game.  'Dre did his typical yeoman's work on the boards (his typical allotment of 12), and "The Mayor" Spencer Dinwidde had a solid 13 point, 5 assist game while shooting 8-9 from the free throw line.  Sabatino Chen also deserves a mention, as an early spate of five high-energy minutes in the 1st half turned the game around.

Carlon had a huge performance last night.  From: the BDC

Despite a roller coaster of a season, Washington is a strong, athletic squad who can hang with any team in the nation.  That CU dropped an 18-point anvil on their heads is an emphatic statement that this team is past their MWC-caused hiccups.

However, I'm not ready to go full Ringo and proclaim this team Pac-12 title contenders, or any other such nonsense; there's still an old Big-12 schedule's worth (16 games) left to play this season.  Still, that was a huge win last night, and there are a lot of heads perking up up and down the Left Coast to see what that noise from Boulder was. 

Lot of work left to do...

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On a side note: Utah beat Washington State in SLC last night (Go Utes?).  I had thought I'd said that I'd eat a hat if they won a conference game, but looking back, I must have changed it at the last minute.  So no hat eating for me! 

Wait, what?  Joy in SLC?  That's un-possible.  From: the Salt Lake Tribune.

It's still a massive shock that the Utes, who looked beyond awful last week, were able to beat anyone.  Additionally, Cal and Stanford fell last night, leaving the Buffs in sole possession of first place in the Pac-12. 

Just goes to show you how fucked up the Pac-12 is this season; so keep the brakes pumped on your expectations for the Buffs until we get a little deeper into conference play.  There's not a team in this league who has proven to be a consistent competitor, and anyone can lose on a given night.

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I didn't get back til late last night, so no WSU preview this morning.  I'll have one up by tomorrow morning.