For the Buffs, that one hurts.
There have been some loses to this season – certainly more than anticipated – but none to a lesser opponent than Utah. Which is not necessarily a knock on the rebuilding Utes but Colorado was using this season as a corner turn and beating inferior opponents is a key to that. Now, to be clear, the road is never an easy place to win. Ask any coach about it and they’ll tell you they are happy with any win away from the friendly confines. But to dance, the ultimate goal of any collegiate team, is to beat the Utah’s of your conference. Those teams you pass by when you glance over the schedule because you’ve already chalked it up in the win column. You don’t necessarily talk about this but let’s be serious, if you’re a fan of an upper tier Pac-12 squad, you dismiss the Utah game. But then the game happens and the team has to show up and evidently the Buffalo bus was 30 minutes late to Salt Lake. I didn’t get to see the game but I did read Andy Glockner’s tweet:
“That's a terrible loss for Colorado, especially in the passionless fashion in which it appears to have happened. Inexcusable.”
– Andy Glockner, 2/2/13
Which about sums it up. As fans we get to look past the game but teams can’t afford that. Not in this finite sport. Not when you play a team that limits possessions like Utah in an effort to limit your team’s opportunities to score. Which makes it all that much more difficult to have an individual shoot 3-14. And let’s be clear here, I’m not pinning anything on Booker. Colorado needs him to score in order to win and perhaps Saturday highlighted that very fact. What’s more, a singular bad shooting night should not dictate the game’s outcome. Not if – and we’re coming full circle here – you plan to dance.
All of that said, this season is not lost. A single game does not a season define. The effort or lack thereof is the definition we fear, not the games result. I’m a firm believer in the next game, watching the reaction of players, coaches, and teams to an undesirable result. It’s perhaps this fact that’s grown my interest in advanced stats in an effort to better recognize the process of a season. To that effect, Colorado still has a top-50 defense, a top-100 offense, and some significant games remaining.
Because while I did previously, in this very post, address the finite nature of this sport, it’s also a long season. One that allows for a few bumps so long as they’re treated as learning opportunities (see my above thoughts on responding to results) and not breaking points.
I’ll see you in eleven days.
