The 2015 Senior Class - Askia Booker

It's once again that time of year.  The time to reflect on what has been, and honor the graduating seniors from the Colorado basketball program. With all do respect to messrs Nelson and Bates, though, I feel the need to break up the pleasantries this year.  For the third year in a row, only one scholarship senior will have his name called out on the day of the final home game, and it's a big one.  This week is dedicated to that man, Askia Booker, and his contributions to the program.  So is this column.

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Askia Booker - Los Angeles, CA -

Diminutive, spunky, lightning-in-a-bottle, Ski came to CU as the undercard of one of the more underrated recruiting classes in program history. But it almost wasn't.  Booker was a somewhat lightly regarded shooter coming out of Price High School in LA.  While Coach Boyle and staff had him on their radar, a risky decision after his junior year of high school to switch to AAU powerhouse Compton Magic hurt his visibility. "They just stopped calling," Booker said. "It was pretty obvious. They fell off. Everybody fell off."  For a time, it looked as if the man to become known simply as 'Ski' would be playing his college ball for the Cal State Northridges of the world.

Askia Booker, however, is made of sterner stuff than most.  Showing that American-sized dose of swagger and intensity that he would become known for in Boulder, Ski dedicated himself in the gym, working diligently to earn the high-major scholarship he knew he deserved.  Suddenly, he was the best player on a high school team full of nationally regarded talent.  Eventually, that CU offer came, and ESPN named him the incoming sleeper ($) in the Pac-12 his freshman year. Paired with fellow freshman Spencer Dinwiddie, the Buffs suddenly had a backcourt foundation to build upon.

Almost from the moment he stepped on campus, you could tell Askia was special.  While some only see the brazen mid-range jumpers, I see the heart and effort behind them.  Booker has always played with a massive chip on his shoulder - a sense that he has to continually prove himself to the doubters - which took the form of hundreds of thousands of shots, year after year in the practice gym. No Buff has ever worked harder.  It was in those moments, behind closed doors, working his ass off, that the 'Scrat' was forged, and a legend was born. 

The basics of his game are simple to identify.  It's all based on speed and aggression. What sets him apart, however, is that Booker has a will, a hunger to win that supersedes all caution. Everything Ski does on the court is meant to take advantage of guys on their heels, players that don't share his commitment to making the most out of every moment.  How else do you explain the shot above of the 6-1 Booker blocking the half-hearted dunk attempt of a seven-foot center from USC? The chip that drives him to put in the work when the cameras are off drives him to take risks when they are on.  But that's the thing.  Just as in life, fortune favors the bold.  In the world of college basketball, where drowsy halfcourt sets and momentum killing timeouts rule, Ski is the swizzle stick stirring up a ruckus.

If safeties-free, all-balls performances like 17 points as a freshman in the NCAA Tournament, or a sizzling domination of a non-conference run in Charleston as a sophomore didn’t let you in on the secret, let me clue you in: Askia Booker was born to get buckets. Important buckets. Season-defining buckets. Winning buckets.  He has a sense for the moment, rising to the occasion with fearlessness.  It is inspiring, and, ultimately, winning basketball.

Seriously, look back over the last four years at everything that made the #RollTad era what it was.  You will see Ski, balls-to-the-walls as always, smirking in the middle. He was the fuel behind the 3-0 start to conference play in 2012, the Tournament win over UNLV that same year, the Charleston Classic title in 2013, the near comeback against Illinois in that year's Dance, the statement win over Kansas last winter, the recovery process after Dinwiddie's injury, and every moment of joy you could mention from this season. Definitive moments from an era of excellence.

The product on the court wasn't always the prettiest; #SKIBALL, after all, was never meant for the feint of heart. But, through all those risks, one fact remains: Booker is a winner. He finishes his career as a conference champion, a non-conference tournament MVP, a three-time participant in the NCAA Tournament, and a winner of 79 games (out of 128 played - 62%). With at least five probable starts remaining, he's also in the top-10 for a number of categories on the all-time CU rolls.  8th in scoring with 1,634 points.  5th in made three pointers.  8th in steals.  4th in minutes and games played.  The list of players who can even approach what he accomplished in Boulder is incredibly short.

To underscore what he means to the success or failure of the program, just consider this:

• In games where Ski shot at least 40% from the floor, the Buffs won over 78% of the time.  
• In games where he was under?  Colorado was a sub .500 club, only winning 34 of 72.  

As Ski went, so did CU.

It's weird to think of him without running mate Spencer Dinwiddie. The pair teamed so well together, a yin and a yang.  Dinwiddie, the mercurial point, Booker, the flashy two guard.  The mesh of their talents burned brightest the last time they shared the court at the Coors Events Center, when they ripped off 50 combined points against Oregon to slingshot the Buffs into the top-15.  It was at that moment that CU was at their best, focused around the daring duo from LA.

Related, there's a part of me that fears that Ski's graduation is the final chapter of a now complete book.  He's the last of the 2012 Pac-12 champions, the last of a generation of talent that took CU basketball to heretofore unheard of heights.  If that is the case, if the wave has indeed crested and spent its energy on the rocks, then how can you not give even more credence to Ski's exploits in Black and Gold?  As talented individually as his current teammates are, they can't measure up to the intangibles that Ski brought to the table each and every day - against comparable talent, that's the difference between winning and losing.

It kills me that this year hasn't been more successful.  It kills me that there are still fans that doubt how or why Ski is as important to the history of this program as he is.  In both respects, Booker deserved better.  But this is not a perfect business - Ski's own success shows that.

When preparing to profile Ski's career in Boulder, I thought back to another controversial guard from recent times, Nate Tomlinson. Just as some witnesses rejected Nate's handling of the rock during his stay at Colorado, many reflexively disdain Booker.  They see the wild shots, the awkward moments, and miss the larger picture. Tomlinson and Booker were both dyed-in-the-wool winners. If, after all you've seen over the last four years, you're still a Ski-denier, then I can't help you.  You've missed the boat on one of the most entertaining and successful players to ever grace the hardwood of the CEC.

Thank you, Askia! You're John McClane in Black and Gold; the sneering action hero fighting against seemingly insurmountable odds. There will never be another like you.

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Best remembered for - 

Can there be another answer?  Of course, it's the game winner against Kansas

Watch the gif. Count the fucks given by Booker. There are none to be found. After release, he just stands there, as if waiting for the oncoming train of noise. Waiting for us, the fans, to realize what he has just pulled off. He was born to hit that shot. He was born to euro-step into that shot. 

This was Ski in his element.  That absurd, delirious element he thrived in.   When you needed someone to step up and grab the bull by the horns, Askia Booker was your man.  That shot will lead the run of program highlights for years to come.


Best aspect of his game - 

Speed.  Pure, unadulterated speed. In open transition, no one can keep pace. His dribble-drive comes off like a rocket launch.  Ski can seemingly go from top of the key to rim in two steps; off of a half-pivot, no less.  Fucking lightning.  There's a reason, after all, that defenses pack the lane against CU.  Not only are there no other shooters to draw their eye, but they know that no one will be able to stay with Ski if he gets that first step off.



Best game as a Buff - 

There's a lot of contenders here.  The Oregon game from his freshman year, the declarative statement of his efforts against UNLV in Albuquerque, the Charleston Classic finale against Murray State, the Kansas game (more of a moment, though), any number of games last winter as the team recovered from the Dinwiddie injury, the pure 30 he dropped in Tucson last month.  In the end, however, thinking on what #SKIBALL really means, there was only one choice: Ski's 43 in Los Angeles against USC.

With Booker, the high points are heart, effort, and a will to win.  He showed all three back on January 29th, refusing to quit in his home town.  It took three overtimes, and he had to overcome a sore hip, but he poured on 43 massive points to drag CU, kicking and screaming, into a 98-94 win over the Trojans. It wasn't as perfect or as effortless as the game in Tucson a few weeks earlier, but that's what made it so Ski like.  It was slightly-flawed brilliance. 13-23 from the floor, 13-15 from the line, he was an all encompassing force.  Never was he better.

2014-15 UCLA Basketball Preview #2: Looking for a Quality Hollywood Sequel

There've been times this season where I've openly pondered "what has to happen for this team to get a road win?"  Thursday night's tilt with the USC Trojans answered that rhetorical question: Askia Booker has to get medieval, and drop a historic amount of points.

Playing in his home town, just minutes from the courts where the human jitterbug learned the game, Ski went off for 43 to almost single-handedly drag the Buffaloes across the finish line for their first road win in eight tries. Colorado needed every one of those points, as USC was holding on for dear life on their home floor.  Locked in a war of attrition, the two teams would battle on through three overtimes and six player disqualifications, stretching nerves and rosters thin.  CU, however, had the trump card - Booker - and kept playing it at just the right moments to secure a 98-94 win.  Finally, the sighs uttered across BuffNation were ones of satisfied exhaustion, rather than frustration.

Ski would not be denied on Thursday. From: the BDC

There's no possible way to overstate how brilliant Ski was on Thursday.  It took him until the 6:28 mark of the first half to find the scoresheet, but, having finally woken up, it was game on.  He scored 10 points in just under two minutes, helping to all but erase a 10-point deficit headed into halftime.  In total, he would score 24 in regulation, powering CU to an 11-pont lead midway through the second half.

About the only thing that could slow Booker down was a cheap shot from brutish USC center Nikola Jovanovic.  On a fast break with eight minutes to play in the second half, the galoot threw a shoulder and a leg into Ski, sending the point guard flying.  While he got up, and only sported a bruise after the game, the assault had its desired effect.  The spark plug was shaken, failing to score down the stretch, and committing a trio of turnovers in the immediate aftermath.  As a result, Colorado as a whole would go on a nearly 15-minute long drought without a made field goal. The refs, particularly clueless in a game marred by questionable officiating, only awarded a common foul.  Askia would have the final laugh, however.

Booker has never been better than he was in overtime.  From: CUBuffs.com

Once into overtime, Booker began to shake off the cobwebs.  By the time the game got to the second extra period, the Scrat was ready to fully flip the switch back to 'on.'  From then till the final horn, Ski would score 17 of CU's 25 points, all without committing a single turnover.  He was everywhere - off the bounce, at the rim, on the step-back.  Hell, he even posted up a defender at one point.  It was Ski Season, in all its ride-the-dragon glory, and the high has never been so good.  For the game, he finished 13-23 from the floor, 13-15 from the line, and even dished out three of Colorado's eight assists in 51 minutes of action. The performance marked the most points by a Buff in a single game since Donnie Boyce's 46 against Oklahoma State in 1994, and stands as the fourth-most ever.  We take him for granted far too often, but that was a perfect example of a player refusing to lose; it was Ski Booker in a nutshell.

It's a little unfair, but Ski's 43 overshadows some encouraging efforts from his teammates. Down two starters, with Jaron Hopkins joining Josh Scott on the inactive list with a bum ankle, the team needed others to step up. Xavier Johnson returned to the lineup for the first time in weeks to chip in 12/5, including the game-tying three pointer in the final minute of the first overtime.  Freshman forward Tory Miller, who has been performing exceptionally well over the last few weeks, submitted his first career double-double (11/13), which featured five huge points in the final frame of overtime to supplement the Ski-splosion.  Without them, and the little efforts chipped in by the other six Buffs who saw the court, the outcome would've been completely different.

Xavier Johnson returned to the court, and played a major role in extending the action.  From: the Post

For the Trojans, they boasted their own historic offensive outputs, as Jovanovic and shooting guard Katin Reinhardt combined for 65 points.  Jovanovic bullied his way to 30/9 on 17 shots, getting most of the CU front line in foul trouble in the process.  Reinhardt went for 35, mostly on 9-18 shooting from deep.  Without Jaron Hopkins to help with defense on the perimeter, he was consistently getting loose on the wing for wide open shots, and was approaching Scott the Dick territory.  Thankfully, both fouled out, and Booker's heroics put an end to that nightmare.

This has the potential to become a massive win.  Beyond just the cancellation of the road losing streak and Ski's bonkers night, the boost to overall team confidence cannot be denied.  The Buffs, as a team, showed more grit and determination on Thursday than I've seen from them all season.  I kept waiting for the shoe to drop, and the untimely the loss to follow, but, time after time, Colorado fought through it (even that damned 15-minute field goal drought).  If they can bring that same determination with them into tonight's meeting with UCLA, this road trip has the potential to become a season-saving moment.  Let's see what the Buffs have for an encore.

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Tip-off from Pauley Pavilion, new court and all, is set for 8:30pm this evening.  Pac-12 Networks, complete with BILL WALTON, has the pictures.  850 KOA, complete with MARK JOHNSON, has the sound.

For reference, my preview from the first game can be found here.

Click below for the preview...

SKIBALL!

Back during the Arizona game - before the clusterfuck at the end - BuffStampede.com's hoops guru, Will Whelan, got into an interesting twitter discussion with SI's Andy Glockner about the danger of Askia Booker having a hot first half.  The implication was that Ski, a volume shooter, will hoist up an extra pile of ill-timed, reckless shot attempts if he feels he's anywhere close to hot, and that those attempts have the potential to stall an offense if they're not falling.

While Booker ended up having a decent game (4-7 from outside, perfect from the line, and 18 points to go along with some shaky play in the collapse), the whole thing got me thinking about the machinations of all things Ski, and how his performances affect the team. He is, after all, the team's leading scorer, bringing nearly 15 points per game to the table.  Surely, the Buffs can't be afraid of using their leading scorer.  His offensive efficiency is over 100, for the love of Tad!

SKIBALL!

By now, I think everyone in BuffNation has gotten used to SkiSeason; the rainbow jump shots, the jump-back 10-footers, the floaters in the lane.  Many of his shot attempts raise both eyebrows and blood pressures, and there hasn't been a game gone by where I don't mentally scream "what the fuck?!" at one of his 25-foot heat-checks. He's essentially fearless, ready to pull the trigger at a moment's notice.  Upon reflection, I find kind of dig it, actually.

I'm fond of tweeting "SKIBALL" after one of his rainbow makes, and the exclamation is more on the nose than you might think.  In the game of skee - which, Dogma assures me, is God's favorite game - you always have the option of shooting at the tiny 100 holes in the upper corners.  Unless you play every day, it's damn difficult to hit that shot consistently, but, when you do, the tickets come flying out.  The flip side is, of course, that if you miss, the ball will rattle around before settling in the 10 hole at the bottom of the board (or, if you're drunk, you could miss the board entirely, cracking the plastic cover on your friend's lane).  It's high risk, high reward.  Such is life with both skee ball and SkiBall.  If you want the tickets, you're going to have to take some chances.  He's the BasketBuffs equivalent of Dave Kingman.

So, what about it?  If Ski is "feeling it," is he more likely to jack up shots?  Could a good first half hurt CU?  Surprisingly, not really.

His stats are split evenly between what I'd call good and bad performances.  He's been both above and below the 40% shooting mark seven times this season.  The difference between those seven games?  Only about one extra shot per contest. When he's under 40%, Ski has taken about 14 shots per game; when he's over, he has taken about 13.  Essentially, he's an aggressive shooter, whether he's making them or not.

When hot earlier this season, Ski carried the Buffs in Charleston.  From: CUBuffs.com

The difference then becomes how the Buffs fare in those games.  When Ski is over 40%, CU is 7-0, riding high, and looking to all the world like a top-25 team.  When he's under 40%, the Buffs are 3-4, and look disjointed on offense.  There's a full 18% shooting gap between his performances in wins and loses.  In victory, Ski shoots 47%.  In defeat 29%.  That's a massive drop off, speaking both to the style Ski plays, and the type of opponent CU has lost to.  A hot Ski is only going to make CU better, as he's going to take the same number of shots anyway.  It's essentially like riding out hot/cold streaks at the craps table.  Since he's taking those 13.5 shots per, regardless, the only real question is whether those shots are going to go in.  For CU, that's often a matter of winning or losing.

We think of Booker as mostly an outside shooter, and that is certainly a huge part of what makes him valuable, but he doesn't solely operate on the perimeter.  His slashes at the rim are a large component of his offensive game (he's taken twice as many two-point attempts as three-point attempts).  When opponents take away that component, turning him purely into a jump shooter, they limit both Ski and the Buffs.  Think of the teams CU has lost to.  Wyoming, Kansas, Arizona, and ASU all focused on cutting off transition and easy slashes at the hoop, forcing CU (and Ski) outside.  Percentages dropped, possessions were wasted through frustration, and loses followed.  It's a team-wide issue, but one that often manifests itself in ugly outside shots from Booker.

Good things happen when Ski is able to attack the basket.

In the end, I just think Ski takes a lot of "dumb" shots.  That's his game.  He takes them when he's hot, he takes them when he's not.  CU has to live with the good and the bad from "the Scrat."  When they're falling, CU wins.  When they're not...  Well, let's just hope they fall.  Coach Boyle isn't going to go up to him and say, "well, you've had a great first half, but we're going to shut you in the second because I'm afraid you'll start missing."  The team needs him to score, night in, night out, and needs to learn to play with his production waves.  With time, I believe he'll become more consistent (he's only a sophomore, remember), which will cure many of these ills.