Men’s basketball will meet Oklahoma Saturday
“We’re trying to get well.”
Senior guard Marcus Hall commented Tuesday on the Buffs’ all but winning conference season.
The struggling Colorado Buffaloes will look to snap a six-game losing streak against the Oklahoma Sooners at the Coors Events Center in Boulder Saturday.
While the Buffs are 9-13 overall, they are 1-7 since conference play started.
Head coach Jeff Bzdelik said, as has been the case all season, the Buffs are focusing more on themselves than on their opponent.
“We’ve played at a high level for a good portion of games, but we need to play at a high level for entire games because we have a small margin for error,” Bzdelik said.
Bzdelik said considering the Buffs are young and not very deep, all five players on the court need to be focused on concentrating their effort and giving everything they have while they are in the game.
“We need everyone on our team to be playing to the best of their ability all the time,” Bzdelik said. “That’s what has to happen.”
Bzdelik said he knew this year would be a rebuilding year and that his team has made many improvements over the course of the season.
“I knew this year would be a year of transition,” Bzdelik said. “A lot of progress has been made and we’ve been competitive. A lot of the progress we’ve made unfortunately has not translated into wins.”
Hall said that he is also seeing signs of improvement and maturity on some of the younger Buffs players.
“You can definitely see it in Cory (Higgins), and I hope the rest of the guys will follow his lead,” Hall said. “Defensively Dwight (Thorne II) has stepped up huge for us. We need those guys to step up and I think they have done a good job so far.”
Senior forward Richard Roby said coach Bzdelik has been telling everyone to focus on themselves as individual players and that is what he has been doing.
“I’ve just been pushing myself every day in practice and trying to keep a positive attitude,” Roby said.
Roby scored 20 of the Buffs’ 54 points against the Sooners last season.
Last season Oklahoma defeated the Buffs 78-54. The Buffs were without Hall for that game because Hall redshirted his junior year.
The Buffs are in last place in the Big 12 with their 1-7 record.
“Right now we’re the only ones who believe,” Hall said. “We know we can beat a lot of teams in this conference.”
Contact Campus Press Staff Writer Brad Cochi at Bradley.Cochi@colorado.edu.
