Colorado Buffaloes Stock Up/Stock Down: CU stumbles and tumbles through Arizona road trip

Both Colorado Buffaloes basketball teams had pivotal road trips down to Arizona last week, and both came up painfully short in their efforts.

Which members of the Buffs basketball teams starred, and which came up short? Let’s take a look.

Stock Up for Colorado Buffaloes hoops

Tameiya Sadler

As we’ll dissect further later, this past week represented a bit of a meltdown for the Colorado Buffaloes’ women’s basketball team, as they struggled a little too much with a bad Arizona State team, and got pummeled by Arizona.

One of the lone bright spots in the swirling cloud of disappointment was Tameiya Sadler.

Over the course of the road trip to the Grand Canyon state, no women’s player scored more than Sadler’s 28 total points, on very efficient 61/100/67 shooting splits. Sadler also averaged four rebounds, two assists, and 2.5 steals per game.

Her most memorable moment of the week was either shooting a perfect 100% from the field against the Sun Devils, or when she led the Buffs’ fourth-quarter scoring run vs. Arizona that proved to be their best offensive outburst of the contest and helped to make the final score easier to swallow.

Javon Ruffin

At this point, it’s no secret that this season is a ‘reloading year’ for the Colorado Buffaloes and Tad Boyle, so any contributions they can get from their underclassman — especially their freshmen — carries extra weight, as it provides a glimpse into a brighter future.

Javon Ruffin is currently the only freshman averaging more than two minutes per night, so a lot of that weight is falling on his shoulders, and in Arizona, he carried it well.

Only Tristan Da Silva (41 combined points) and K.J. Simpson (24 combined points) — CU’s two biggest stars on the men’s basketball team by a wide margin — outscored Ruffin on the road trip, and only Luke O’Brien outrebounded him.

Ruffin was efficient with his looks too, posting splits of 53/45/100, while turning the ball over just once and being called for just two fouls over the two games combined.

The 2022-2023 campaign has been a drag, but there are solid reasons to believe next year will be much better.

Tristan Da Silva

This one is fairly straightforward.

Tristan Da Silva is the clear No. 1 option for the Colorado Buffaloes, and, as a result, much of the scoring responsibility falls to him. When Da Silva is firing on all cylinders, he’s been able to lead the Buffs to victory on several occasions this season, but when he’s off, the team crumbles into rubble.

After a rough home battle against Utah, which saw Da Silva just six points and two rebounds, on 25% shooting, over 36 minutes, he was back to being his typically dominant self this past week.

Against the Sun Devils, Da Silva put up 23 points with ease, 10 more than the next-highest-scoring Buff, while adding four boards to his tally. Then, against the Wildcats, he spearheaded an early scoring run that gave CU a commanding lead and made the upset feel like a realistic possibility.

The fact he got into foul trouble early against the Wildcats, and therefore was forced to play less than 29 minutes for the first time in over a month, is the one big issue with his performance this week.

Tad Boyle has a bonafide star in Da Silva.

Stock Down for Colorado Buffaloes hoops

Colorado Buffaloes women’s team

On their five-game win streak, the Colorado Buffaloes’ women looked like a legitimate power. The defense was incredibly stingy, Jaylyn Sherrod has been a dynamic lead guard, Aaronette Vonleh and Quay Miller formed a formidable tandem of towers that lorded over the paint and owned the glass, and Frida Formann looked like an awesome floor-spacing wing.

Almost all of that seemed to evaporate during the trip down to Arizona.

First, the team barely snuck past an Arizona State squad that has so far lost every single Pac-12 contest.

Then, they turned an embarrassing performance in one of their biggest games of the season, as they required a late fourth-quarter scoring run to crack the 40-point threshold and to narrow the margin of defeat to less than 20.

The Colorado Buffaloes’ women will now have to rally if they want to defend homecourt against No. 3 Stanford.

Jalen Gabbidon

During Colorado’s trip down to Arizona, Luke O’Brien got his second and third starts of the season and performed very well.

He recorded at least nine points, nine rebounds, and two assists, in each outing, and those rebounds are especially valuable to Tad Boyle, as it’s an area where the Colorado Buffaloes have struggled all season.

Now, Luke O’Brien’s emergence is terrific news for the Buffs, but it’s not good at all for Jalen Gabbidon, who has been sent tumbling down the bench as a result.

Gabbidon was the early answer to replace J’Vonne Hadley in the starting lineup, following his season-ending injury, and averaged 22 minutes a night over the subsequent three games. During the Arizona trip, Gabbidon saw the court just seven minutes a night, on average.

Jaylyn Sherrod

The entire women’s team came up short for the Colorado Buffaloes on their trip to Arizona, as we’ve discussed, but Jaylyn Sherrod — the team’s star guard — was especially disappointing.

After nuking the Washington schools on the offensive end and pestering them incessantly on the defensive end, Sherrod was largely ineffective against the Wildcats and Sun Devils. In fact, she was arguably even a liability on offense this past week.

Against Arizona, she tallied just two points, two rebounds and two assists, while managing to turn the ball over four times and be called for three fouls. Plus, she shot 10 percent from the field on the way to those two points, and it wasn’t like she wasn’t getting good shots either. With her quickness and handle, she had no problem getting good looks, she just had no ability to sink them.

As March nears, Sherrod has to turn the gas up, as opposed to shrinking into the corner.