Colorado Too Much For @unco_mbb

Saturday, December 13

Boulder, Colo.

4:00 p.m.

University of Northern Colorado

4-4

Colorado

6-3

UNCO

Colorado

Photo by: Ed Navarro

12/13/2014 8:24:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score

The Bears played another great half of basketball, but couldn't continue it over to the second half, dropping their second game in a row, 93-68

By: UNCBears.com

BOULDER, Colo. – With both teams having the sour taste of Colorado State in their mouths, it cued an exciting evening in the Coors Event Center. Northern Colorado once again played a brilliant first half of basketball, but couldn't carry it over into the second half, falling 93-68 to Colorado.

"Our inability to defend was a big factor in this game," said head coach B.J. Hill "We had one guy rebounding today. We try to talk about defense and rebounding and communication. The lack of communication really bothers me. We didn't communicate on our ball screen defense, on a lot of things that they do on their offense. If you're not going to talk to each other, it makes things a lot harder. It makes your team inefficient and we were inefficient today."

After coming off what is undoubtedly their worst performance from beyond the arc (4-21 against CSU) on the season UNC followed it up one of their better evenings, going 10-18, including an 80% first half performance (8-10).

In his first start in nearly a month, sophomore guard Cameron Michael made it count, opening the game with back-to-back shots from beyond 22-feet. Michael would tack on another trey-ball in the half, going a perfect 3-3, but got into foul trouble in the first four minutes of the game and would see limited minutes the remainder of the half.

Northern Colorado played catchup the first five minutes, having to answer every CU bucket with one of their own.

Despite the hot shooting, the Bears still trailed the Buffaloes by one, 17-16 at the first media timeout.

At the timeout, UNC was 6-7 from the field including 3-3 from three-point range, but Colorado remained perfect, shooting 4-4 from the floor including, 2-2 from beyond the arc. CU was also 4-5 from the charity stripe.

"The jump shots were going in," said Hill. "When jump shots go in, They cover up a lot of the bad. We weren't playing that good. It's just that the shots we took were bad in the second half."

The Bears were held without a bucket for the next four minutes and CU slowed started to pull away, after an Askia Booker trey gave the Buffaloes a four-point extension.

Sophomore guard Anthony Johnson saw minutes for the first time in a road game all season and made it count, knocking down another UNC three-pointer to dig into the CU lead, cutting it down to four from seven, 27-23. Sophomore point guard Jordan Wilson followed suit, hitting a deep ball of his own on the ensuing position for a quick, 6-0 spark from UNC, knocking the deficit down to just one with 9:08 to go in the half.

Five straight points from CU's Gordon Wesley gave the Buffs another safety blanket, but again UNC came clawing back. Another three from Wilson and a coast-to-coast layup from senior guard, Tevin Svihovec tied the game up at 31-31 with 7:12 to play, the first tie since the game was 13-13 at the 16:00 minute mark.

Yet another scoring drought for UNC (3 minutes without a FG) allowed Colorado to produce seven straight points.

Senior forward Dominique Lee who had a monster first half on the boards (10 rebounds), stopped the suffering, powering two points off an offensive rebound with 4:44 to remaining in the half.

With less than three minutes to play in the half, Wilson drained his third three-pointer of the half and jump started the offense. UNC outscored Colorado, 8-2 in the final three minutes of action and would head into the locker room down just two, 44-42.

"I think we got a little tired because we didn't get a lot of production off of the bench," said Hill. "I was playing some guys some minutes that they don't normally play. They're (CU) good. We were chasing them around offensively. I thought they were really dialed in today which I knew they would be after losing two games in a row, that it would become a little bit of a hornets nest."

An all too familiar scenario started to come to life in the second half for the Bears. Just as the CSU jumped out to a double-digit lead, CU mimicked the action, scoring 10 straight points to go into the first media timeout up, 55-45.

Battling back as they had done all game, Northern Colorado again kept it close. Michael hit the mid-range jumper and drew the foul, completing the old fashioned three-point play and brought the Bears within breathing distance, 55-52 with 13:57 left on the scoreboard.

Jaron Hopkins' name was called on the transition for CU and he answered, drilling a trey on the fast break. Xavier Johnson followed that up with another three-ball for the Buffs to go back up by six, and killing any momentum UNC created.

Michael continued to battle hitting his only deep-shot of the half, at the 12:42 mark, keeping the deficit at six, but UNC would do little after that, only scoring 16 more points for the remainder of the game.

Colorado jumped on the lack of offense from the Bears, finishing the contest on a 32-16 run and downing UNC, 93-68.

Micheal led UNC with 16 points, followed by Svihovec with 13. Lee produced his third double-double of the season, scoring 10 points and grabbing a career-high 17 boards.

Northern Colorado was outrebounded by the Buffaloes, 35-24. CU also posted 21 assists on the night compared to UNC's 10.

The Bears ended the game 24-61 (39.3%) from the floor, including 10-18 (55.6%) from three-point land. Colorado finished 31-49 (63.3%) from the field and 12-18 (66.7%) from beyond the arc.

"We have to be better defensively than what we were today," Hill said. "That was a little bit of our depth as well. We wore out in the second half. When we subbed, we weren't getting a lot of quality minutes. I'm not talking about points. I'm just talking about intensity, defending, rebounding. We didn't get that. I saw our guys wear out a little bit. They did a great job of pushing the ball in transition. We had troubles stopping them from the get go."

The men's basketball team ends their three game road trip in Omaha, Nebraska on Dec. 17 taking on Nebraska-Omaha. Tipoff from Ralston Arena is scheduled for 6:00 p.m. (MT)