JBL | The Quadaily 25, 2028 Season (Day 13): Where The Buffalo (and Tigers) Roam
Day 13
The Tip: Colorado, Missouri Make Statements
When people saw Colorado and Missouri ranked (Colorado was ranked 18th, Missouri the first Next), they had doubts about that standing.
That reasoning would be justifiable. Colorado went 14-17 last year, and didn't have a necessarily sparkling recruiting class (ranked 52nd, just behind UAB). Missouri went 20-12, but there was nothing there that said they should be taken seriously in the SEC this year.
Think again.
Both find themselves moving up the polls after the most recent games. Colorado took down now #17 Arkansas, 72-56, while Missouri handled Kansas, then #3 (now #8, still #1 in the AP), 82-73.
Sure, both games were at home, and there can be some tempered expectations to home wins against ranked opponents. But they were statement games for each.
Colorado got 17 the hard way from reserve C LG Corchiani. He went just 1-3 from the field, but 15-16 from the line. Only one other player, LHassane Wilkerson, had ten points, and he had exactly that.
That has been the team's track to success this year, a varied bit of scoring. Corchiani and Wilkerson are the only players who average over double figures. Corchiani leads the team with 12.0 ppg, and he doesn't start (in fact, he averages just 16.7 mpg).
This game could have gone a bit differently for Arkansas if Corchiani hadn't happened to Arkansas star Jamaal Bolden. Bolden, the leading scorer for the Razorbacks, had just two points, but four fouls, against Colorado. The Buffalos also coaxed a 3-for-14 day out of Lorenzen Dyer, who is shooting just 24% from the field (and 25% from 3). His inefficiency is understandable and expected as a freshman, but the volume is something Arkansas may need to address until he finds his rhythm.
You have to feel for the Razorbacks some...UConn, UNC, and now Colorado. It certainly won't get easier, with Georgia Tech, Oklahoma State, and Clemson on the horizon. Games against Texas, UNLV and Purdue await them as well.
Back to Colorado. This game was a two-point game with 2:51 left. The Buffs managed to pull it out a bit to lead by six at the half, 36-30. Then...they didn't run away from Arkansas, but Colorado kept distancing themselves, bit by bit.
"We felt like we were ready to make a run, but it never came," said Bolden after the game. "We thought, okay, a stop here, a bucket there...it felt close. Then you looked up (at the scoreboard), and they were up sixteen."
With 4:34, Colorado led 66-50. The slow churn is a special kind of torture. They forced Arkansas into a quicksand offense...the more you try to move, the worse it gets. The pace of this game (66.0) definitely reflects the will Colorado imposed on Arkansas.
Missouri, too, is a plodder. They rank 233rd in pace, and, this is the amazing thing, 332nd in field goal attempts per game (48.3). It isn't as though they are jacking up a bunch of threes, either: they are 220th in the nation there. (To be honest, when you review the team stats, they really aren't not all that impressive.)
Yet, they posted 82 on Kansas. Part of it was they shot well (57%). Both teams got the same number of rebounds (21). The Jayhawks outscored the Tigers in second-chance points, for crying out louid (9-6).
So what was it?
Missouri's eFG% was a crazy 62.2%.
Kansas was an even 50%.
Missouri got 45 points in the paint, something that was noted against Kansas this year...they can be had inside. And Missouri had their way with the Jayhakws. Additionally, Missouri got more from their bench (29-18).
The Tigers also contested more shots (48-41).
The result was a near wire-to-wire win, one of the most surprising of the early season. Brandon Dampier posted 19 points and 11 rebounds. (He also had half of the team's ten turnovers). Joe Morton had 14, while Johnnie Brickman added 12 off the bench. Those three combined to go 16-26 from the floor.
If you take out Trey Blakeney's 0-6, the team is 28-43 from the field. That's pretty amazing.
For the Jayhawks, any loss is a bad one, but this one may prove to be okay. Missouri is still a bit of an unknown quantity at this stage, but this is the biggest, and maybe most impressive, win from a mid-tier team (on the rankings thus far) so far this year.
Other news and notes: UConn handled Arizona, 71-65, behind 29 from Jack Dawkins. The story here, though, was Jeremy Sawvell, who scored 30 on 11-14 shooting. UConn has arguably the best interior defense in the nation. Sawvell is acquitting himself really, really well so far this season; he is definitely in the conversation for the top pick in next year's JBL draft...this year's mid-major darling, Long Beach State, gave the defending champs all they could handle before falling, 82-80. The 49ers led by five with 5:46 left, but they could not hang on. What doomed LBSU was their inefficient shooting (48.1 eFG%). What almost doomed Stanford was their turnovers (17 of them, 22% of their possessions ended in one). Stanford had just a little more secondary scoring: Jason Thorne's 17-14-4, Treshaad Hanel's 15 and 8 assists (six turnovers), and David Davidson's 12 off the bench, gave Stanford just enough. LBSU got 22 and 10 rebounds from Samir Barnard, and 16 from Matt Whitfield...NC State had a rather impressive win of its own, going to Washington and gaining a 72-63 win. Johnathan Battier had 16, and Justin Noel 13 and seven assists, to pace the Wolfpack through a rather ugly game. NC State shot 48%, but was 3-13 from three, and commited 14 turnovers. Washington was stymied into 36% from the field, and 31# from three, though. It was a particularly rough day for Daryl Mills, who went 3-11 from the field, finishing with just 9-6-3. Garrison Patten led Washington with 21. NC State had a unique strategy for this one: let backup center Darren Bar shoot whenever he had the chance. That proved to be a solid strategy, as he went 4-16 from the field in place of Matteo DeVecchi, who managed to foul out in just eleven minutes.
The Quad
1. Duke (4-0, 1)
2. Indiana (4-0, 2)
3. UNC (4-0, 4)
4. Michigan State (4-0, 5)
5. Southern Cal (2-1, 6)
6. UConn (5-0, 7)
7. Kansas (4-1, 3)
8. Texas (3-0, 8)
9. Arizona (3-2, 8)
10. Georgetown (2-1, 10)
11. NC State (4-0, 16)
12. Washington (3-1, 10)
13. Michigan (3-0, 13)
14. UCLA (3-1, 14)
15. Colorado (4-0, 17)
16. Missouri (4-0, 21)
17. Arkansas (2-3, 12)
18. Kentucky (3-0, 18)
19. Virginia (3-0, 19)
20. Florida (1-1, 20)
21. Oklahoma State (4-0, 22)
22. Illinois (4-0, 23)
23. Memphis (1-2, 15)
24. Purdue (1-2, 24)
25. Kansas State (3-1, 25)
Next: Pitt, Ohio State, Villanova, St. John's, Gonzaga