After a week off and time to rest, the Colorado Buffaloes get back to action Saturday afternoon when they host Cal State Bakersfield in Boulder, Colo.
Colorado (8-3) is coming off a win over the Milwaukee Panthers on Dec. 10 and is hoping to build momentum before returning to Pac-12 play in January.
The Buffaloes have had trouble with non-major conference foes this season, squeaking out wins over Montana State, Duquesne, Brown, Eastern Washington and Milwaukee. Colorado has struggling with consistency, needing late rallies to secure victories.
“It’s the old Forrest Gump line,” coach Tad Boyle said after the 65-54 win over the Panthers. “We’re like a box of chocolates — you never know what you’re going to get. That doesn’t mean night to night. It means timeout to timeout, first half to second half.
“I would sure like to put 40 minutes together, and we haven’t even come close this year. We haven’t even scratched the surface. We have to be more consistent.”
The Buffaloes are averaging 72.0 points a game but are shooting just 29.9 percent from behind the 3-point line. Leading scorer Jabari Walker (14.5 points a game) is hitting on just 24.3 percent of his 3-point attempts.
The Roadrunners (4-3), who fell to Abilene Christian, 69-59 on Wednesday night, have a common opponent with Colorado — both lost to No. 4 UCLA this season.
Saturday’s game will be CSU Bakersfield’s last nonconference road game. The Roadrunners will try to clean up their mistakes from a loss to Abilene Christian, which reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament last spring.
“We turned the ball over too much, especially early in the game,” Roadrunners coach Rod Barnes said. “We have to give them the credit for fighting harder than we did to get the win. I told our guys it’s really hard to go on the road and win. You’ve got to have a different kind of mentality and tonight we didn’t have that kind of mentality.”
–Field Level Media