The University of Colorado men’s basketball team is off to a 6-1 start and facing on of their biggest tests of the young season Sunday when they travel to the hostile environs of Moby Arena in Fort Collins to face in-state rival Colorado State. The lone blemish on Colorado’s record this year came in their first game, a six-point loss to then-No. 7, now-No. 5 Iowa State on a (semi-)neutral court in South Dakota.
Much of the Buffs’ early season success can be attributed to their strong perimeter game, a fact emphasized on Thursday night by Jimmy Wood, a contributing writer to Rivals.com, on The Press Box Insider with Josh Davis.
“This is a different team than [head coach Tad] Boyle’s ever had up there,” said Wood. “He’s been known as a driving team – a bunch of guys who can finish around the rim.” Colorado still has that, with stalwarts like senior Josh Scott and junior Wesley Gordon, and the emergence of sophomore Tory Miller. But this year the Buffs are shooting the ball at an unprecedented rate so far.
Colorado is shooting better than 43 percent as a team from behind the arc with eight players shooting 40 percent or better, four of those have 18 or more attempts. That’s a full 10 percent better than they shot last year.
Colorado returned their top three-point shooter from the 2014-15 campaign, Tre’Shaun Fletcher, who is actually behind his .458 average from last season at .400 on the year so far. George King and Josh Fortune have been the biggest surprises, perhaps, both shooting .469, and sophomore point guard Dominique Collier has impressed beyond his known ball handling skills.
As a blue-chip recruit out of Denver East, Collier is really coming to his own this year and, as Wood observes, is the beneficiary of surprisingly strong play from his freshman backup.
“Dom Collier continues to improve, continues to play well,” Wood says. Meanwhile, “Thomas Akyazili, the backup point guard, is starting to blossom as an option that’s as good as Dom and potentially better.”
That bodes well not only for this year, but for down the road, as well. “Now you have a sophomore and a freshman point guard thats going to be around for years in this program,” says Wood.
The focus, for now however, remains on this season. Both Wood and Davis originally believed that Colorado could and would be a tournament team this year, but with the surprising perimeter play and the established interior game, they think the Buffs could make a run at being a top-25 team.
Colorado will get a good look at how close they are to that goal when they take on Colorado State on Sunday. The Rams are 5-2 and will be looking to right the ship after a home loss to Long Beach State on Wednesday night. CSU received one top-25 vote last week and opened the season with a big win against Northern Iowa, who later defeated then-No. 1 North Carolina.
Listen to the full discussion on the Buffs’ perimeter game, plus a more in-depth look at the upcoming matchup with CSU, in the podcast below…
Catch The Press Box Insider every weeknight from 8p-10p on Mile High Sports AM 1340 or stream live any time for the best local coverage of what’s new and what’s next in Colorado sports.