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Colorado’s coach addresses the media after their seventh straight Big 12 loss
It’s never a good sign when a coach opens their post-game presser by apologing to fans and former players. Yet, that’s where Tad Boyle and the Colorado Buffaloes find themselves.
“I want to start to apologizing to our fanbase and every former player to wear the Colorado uniform,” said Boyle after CU’s 83-67 loss to BYU. “We’re not living up to our end of the bargain, as a coaching staff or as players.”
Needless to say, Colorado’s not playing their best basketball right now. The Buffs have opened their Big 12 slate by going on an seven game losing streak. On top of that, CU is currently ranked 347 out of 377 DI teams in turnovers per game, averging a whopping 15.1 per game this season. Colorado has the 217th best scoring offense in the NCAA, averging 73.3 points per game, compared to their 207th ranked scoring defense, with an average of 72.2 points allowed per game.
Tad Boyle has built this program around playing “TadBall,” a brand of hoops that focuses on fundamentals, namely sound defense and rebounding. Unfortunately, what Colorado fans have been witnessing is anything but foundamentally sound TadBall hoops.
Colorado was never supposed to be a powerhouse like they were last season. The Buffs lost all of their top six rotation players after breaking for the program record in a single season with 26 last season. Three of those players went to the NBA and the other three entered the transfer portal and are playing elsewhere.
Fans expected this season to be a step back from last season, but they didn’t expect this. Now 0-7 in Big 12 play, Colorado seemingly can’t stop their own bleeding.
“When you let [BYU] shoot 67.9% from the field in your building after half, you know something’s wrong,” said Boyle. “We better fix what’s wrong or we are going to continue to get the same result.”
Whatever’s wrong, Boyle has taken full accountability for Colorado’s seven-game slump, saying he has to step up to big CU out of their currently hole.
“It’s frustrating, but I have to do a better job,” Boyle said. “I know a keep saying that and i’m not. I’m really disappointed in myself.”
Boyle hasn’t lost confidence in himself and the work he has done at Colorado. As CU’s program leader in wins, there’s no denying that, but he admits changes needed to be made.
“I’m not going to stop doing what I do,” said Boyle. “I’ve been here for 14 years, this is year 15. I haven’t lost confidence in myself, I can tell you that. I feel like I can coach this game, but I’m not doing a good enough job coaching this team and these players. I gotta go back to the drawing board and see how I can get to them, because right now I’m not getting to them.”
Something that Boyle is working to address with his team is mental toughness. When the going gets tough, the Buffaloes have cracked. Against BYU, Colorado ripped off a 14-0 run in the first half and immediately followed that up with allowing the Cougs to go on a 39-6 run, where CU shot 0-16 from the field over a 10 minute stretch.
“Here’s the thing about our team; when things go bad, we feel sorry for ourselves...” said Boyle. “Our players are feeling sorry for themselves. And that’s a problem because when you internalize “woe is me,” you’re not helping your team.”
Boyle gives an example from the BYU game, where communication broke down in the midst of the Cougars 39-6 run.
“Andrei Jakimovski is guarding [BYU’s] best player [Richie Saunders]...” Boyle explains. “[Saunders] Drives by [Jakimoski] on the baseline and we’re supposed to have three guys on the weak side with two feet in the paint. [Saunders] drives by [Jakimoski] and lays it in the goal and there’s nobody there to help him. “
In situations like that, Boyle wants to his team play less selfishly and more as a unit, like the TadBall teams before them.
“Those guys are thinking about themselves, they’re not thinking about helping Andrej,” Boyle said. “Defensively, you have to help each other if you’re going to be any good at this level. We’re not helping each other because we are concerned about ourselves and that is a problem.”
Things are going to get any easier for Colorado, either. They head to Tucson to face off against the Arizona Wildcats at McKale Center this afternoon at 1 pm, a place in which they’ve never *officially* won. If Colorado can display some new-found mental toughness, anything is possible.
by RylandScholes
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