Following Colorado’s 78-44 loss at Texas Tech this past Wednesday, Buffaloes head coach Tad Boyle told reporters he was “embarrassed for the state of Colorado” and that his team had “wasted our university’s money.”
But although Colorado fell 90-86 in overtime to No. 22 BYU on Saturday, Boyle was much happier with the Buffaloes’ effort in nearly upsetting the Cougars.
“That was a heck of a college basketball game. I’m really, really proud of our guys,” Boyle said. “We got spanked and punched in the face on Wednesday against Texas Tech. But (against BYU) I felt like we were aggressive the whole game, and we fought like a team I’m proud of representing.”
While Colorado scored 21 points off of 16 BYU turnovers, the Cougars shot 50% from 3-point range and held the Buffs to 2 of 10 shooting in overtime to secure the victory.
“I told them in the in the locker room, sometimes basketball comes down to a make/miss game. Most games don’t, but some games do,” Boyle said. “And tonight, you know, BYU made the open shots when they had them, especially down the stretch, and we didn’t. We had some really, really good looks down the stretch of regulation and certainly in overtime, we just didn’t knock them down.
“But our guys fought, and I can live with that. I don’t do moral victories, but I can live with the fight we had.”
BYU star Richie Saunders left the game after less than a minute due to an apparent knee injury, with Tyler Mrus, Aleksej Kostic and Mihailo Boskovic platooning in his place for 15 combined points off the bench, with Kostic’s 3-pointer in overtime giving the Cougars a lead they’d never surrender.
“Give BYU credit, those kids that came in off the bench, (Mrus), (Boskovic), (Kostic), who don’t normally get to play, you know, they made four threes in that first half,” Boyle said. “So, credit them. We knew they’ve got shooters on the bench, but they hadn’t played a lot, they were thrown into the fire and they responded.”
While BYU’s freshman phenom AJ Dybantsa did flirt with a triple-double in the form of 20 points, 13 rebounds and eight assists, Colorado had plenty of defensive success against him, making his life difficult in shooting just 6 of 20 from the field and forcing him into seven turnovers.
“Sebastian Rancik did a phenomenal job defending AJ Dybantsa,” Boyle said. “I know he fouled out at the end, but he did a phenomenal job with his discipline. But I think it’s a combination of Sebastian’s individual effort on him, as well as Josiah Sanders and Jalin Holland when they were on him.”
Colorado, now 14-12 on the season and 4-9 in Big 12 play, will return home to Boulder for a pair of winnable games against Oklahoma State and Kansas State.
“I told them in the locker room, ‘I’ll go to war with you guys when you perform like you did tonight in terms of your effort, your togetherness, your energy,’” Boyle said.