The University of Colorado athletic department will reportedly ask the Pac-12 to conduct in an interview in regards to Friday night’s semifinal loss to the Arizona Wildcats at T-Mobile Area in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Sources made this aware to Buffzone’s Pat Rooney who broke the story after the game Friday night.
"Following the Buffs’ 82-72 loss against top-seeded Arizona in the conference semifinals, sources from CU’s athletic department told BuffZone the university will ask the Pac-12 to conduct an official review of the officiating Friday night at T-Mobile Arena."
Colorado has every right to be mad — Arizona shot 25 free throw compared to just 10 from the Buffs. Arizona made the most of it as they went a near perfect 24-of-25 from the charity stripe.
Let’s just be honest here — that wasn’t the main reason Colorado lost but it was an extremely frustrating part of it. Arizona, who just captured the Pac-12 Championship in a win over UCLA Saturday night, used their size and length to their advantage against Colorado.
Arizona’s bigs Oumar Ballo and Christian Koloko combined for 18 points and two blocks while giving Colorado fits down low.
"They’re very well balanced. They’ve got a lot of weapons, so they don’t rely on any one guy,” Boyle said. “(Oumar) Ballo and (Christian) Koloko, when they’re in the middle of the lane and they are posting up, and we’re trying to front and we’re not allowed to get around and the fouls are called on us, you can’t guard them. There’s no way to guard them in the low post when they’re allowed to do that."
Colorado’s Jabari Walker and Evan Battey each had four fouls early in the second half which left the Buffs shorthanded as they had to revert to a smaller lineup.
While Tad Boyle mentioned they didn’t lose the game because of the officiating, he did mention that the officiating was a little different Friday night than it was in Boulder in late-February.
Interesting comments from coach and he’s not wrong.
In February’s matchup between the two teams, fouls were 21-18 in favor of Arizona. As for Friday night’s game, fouls were 21-14 in favor of Arizona. The Wildcats shot 24 free throws in the loss to Colorado in Boulder so they were right on par with Friday night’s game.
When it’s all said and done, this interview they’re requesting won’t mean anything. It is nice however to see them sticking up for their team after a frustrating loss.
Colorado will look forward to seeing what the future holds for them Sunday afternoon. It’ll be highly unlikely the team sees their name called for the NCAA Tournament, but instead will have to wait until Sunday night to see where their name is called for the NIT.