Buffs start season with win

The CU men’s basketball team beat the Concordia University Stingers in its first exhibition game, 97-85.

Junior guard Richard Roby lead the Buffs with 22 points and seven rebounds.

“I knew the game was going to be like this with a lot of young guys on the team – a lot of jitters out there,” Roby said. “I’ve been here a couple of years, so I wanted to go out there and slow everything up.”

Freshman guards Kal Bay and Xavier Silas saw a lot of playing time on Thursday night. Silas lead all the freshmen with 16 points.

“I felt good,” Silas said. “We have been working hard in practice. This was like a night off compared to practice, so it was fun.”

In the first half, the Buffs seemed to be working hard, but the team was out rebounded 21-13.

“I thought it was a good first contest for our guys. Saw some good things and some bad things. There is a lot of work ahead of us, particularly on the defensive end. We knew going into the game that our offense would be ahead of our defense,” said head coach Ricardo Patton.

The biggest surprise of the night came from senior guard Dominique Coleman. After averaging 4.4 points, 2.4 rebounds, 2.0 assists, and 1.2 steals a game last season, Coleman scored 17 points, had four rebounds, seven assists, and five steals.

“We have the ability to score in a lot of different ways. We still have to look at some different lineups,” Patton said. “I thought Jeremy Williams came off the bench and did a nice job for us. Silas did a nice job. Challenged Roby in the second half to rebound the ball better, which he did.”

The Buffs played well on offense with five players reaching double digits in points. But the team was less impressive on the defensive side.

“I think we learned a lot of things about our team,” Roby said. “There were a lot of good things that happened and thing we need to work on. That’s why we play these types of games to identify those things.”

Although Concordia kept it close in the second half, the Buffs never lost the lead.

In the end, most of the freshmen saw their first bit of playing time on Thursday, and they all handled it well.

“It was fun,” Silas said. “It was everything I expected.”

The Buffs will play one more exhibition game against Regis before the season opener against Denver University in Boulder.