It was an ugly one at Mortage Matchup Center in Phoenix, Arizona, Saturday night for Tad Boyle's Colorado Buffaloes. Stanford's 2-3 zone, along with Ebuka Okorie, helped them secure the 77-68 victory to move to 10-2 on the season.
3 frustrating takeaways from Colorado's loss to Stanford
Stanford's 2-3 zone caused problems.
Colorado held a two-point lead heading into halftime of this game. However, Stanford's 2-3 zone had other ideas as the second half emerged.
The Buffs were very indecisive on the offensive end. It seemed as if they were playing hot potato and holding onto the ball far too late into shot clock. To their credit, they did have some chances to knock down open looks due to Stanford's over shifting of the zone, but they were very hesitant and turnover prone.
Tad Boyle isn't going to be pleased seeing that his young Colorado squad turned the ball over a season-high 18 times Saturday night.
Colorado will have an opportunity to correct this with one more tuneup game against Northern Colorado before entering Big 12 play.
Ebuka Okorie is easily the best player Colorado has faced so far this season.
What more can you say about the performance from Stanford's true freshman point guard? The 6'2 guard scored 32 points in tonight's game, breaking the previous Stanford freshman single game record of 31 previously held by Kanaan Carlyle.
He hit 6-of-13 field goals attempts, but he was most successful from the charity stripe, where he went 18-of-21.
While the Cardinal only hit seven of 21 long range shots, Benny Gealer had three of them and seemed to hit them at key times.
Tad Boyle has an Elijah Malone problem.
Look - I'm as big of an Elijah Malone guy as anyone else, but it's been a tough watch the past few games.
With the exception of Fawaz Ifaola, who came in near the end of the game, he played the fewest minutes out of all Colorado players Saturday night.
Four fouls were committed by Malone, so he scored as many points as he committed fouls. Teams seem to be attacking him on the dribble and he isn't quick enough to recover.
Come conference play, it will be interesting to see how Boyle shakes up his lineups, but I wouldn't be surprised to see him stick with his veteran center.