Junior guard Cory Higgins (#11) leaps for the basket during the second period of Saturday's game against Texas Tech. (CU Independent/Kelly Kaoudis)
Just when you thought the outstanding backcourt tandem for the CU men’s basketball team couldn’t get any better, they one-up themselves again.
Junior Cory Higgins had his third 30-point game this season (and fifth in his career) and freshman Alec Burks eclipsed Richard Roby as Colorado’s all-time leading freshman scorer with his 24 points, leading the team to their third-straight win on Saturday afternoon.
With his 30 points, Higgins also moved into the top ten of CU’s all-time scoring list, passing Stephane Pelle for ninth in program history.
The question many Buff fans may be asking themselves at this point is, will this (and another year with the group of players coming back in 2011) be enough to keep Higgins in gold and black and away from the NBA for another year?
“I guess it’s some extra motivation, but regardless, I need to come back better than I was this year [next year],” Higgins said.
The good news is that even if Higgins declares for the 2010 NBA Draft, as long as he doesn’t hire an agent and withdraws his name within ten days of the draft (June 24), he can still return to Boulder.
As for his partner in crime, Burks has also been speculated to leave CU early, slotted by many as a top five pick in the 2011 draft. But that would mean the guard from Grandview, Mo., would stay in Boulder for at least one more year.
Burks was very humbled to pass big names such as Chauncey Billups and Roby in the record books this season.
“It means a lot,” Burks said. “It means a great freshman performance, so it means a great deal to me to break that record.”
While the dynamic duo has been consistent in their production throughout the year, the question of who CU’s third option would be was a little more clouded.
Senior Dwight Thorne, who was the Buffs’ second leading scorer a year ago, was relegated to bench duty and had inconsistent showings on offense throughout the season.
Junior Casey Crawford, who has shown glimpses of greatness with his scoring outbursts against Iowa State and Nebraska (30 points in two games), hasn’t shown he can perform on a consistent basis either.
Instead it’s been junior Marcus Relphorde, in his first season of this level of Division I play (he saw limited action as a freshman for St. Louis of the Atlantic 10) who has emerged as a viable third option, averaging 10.8 points a game and scoring 11 or more points in six straight games.
For Higgins, having that scoring support just helps to put his mind at ease.
“This year’s team is so much more balanced,” Higgins said after the win, a game in which “the Big Three” combined for 72 of Colorado’s season-high 101 points. “Last year if I didn’t have a big night, there probably wasn’t going to be a good chance of us winning the game. It just makes us a better team as a whole.”
As a result of having multiple options, the confidence level of the team has been rising since the first game of the season. Especially now that they are in the midst of a three-game conference winning streak, their first in seven years.
Higgins said the attitude of the team is different than in the past.
“This is probably the most confidence [the team’s had] since I have been part of the Colorado program,” Higgins said.
He also added, “I think this team has a little bit of cockiness and swagger, and I think that helped us a lot through this year.”
Moving forward, the team now heads to Kansas City, Mo., for the Big 12 tournament come Wednesday, where the eighth-seeded Buffs will get a rematch with the ninth-seeded Red Raiders team they just defeated.
When asked if his team has considered the possibility of making the postseason, head coach Jeff Bzdelik stayed the course he’s piloted his team on since day one.
“You never know,” Bzdelik said. “All we can do is take care of what we can control and that is trying our very best to get a win on Wednesday, and keep going. That’s what we can control.”
As hard as it might be for those familiar with CU basketball to believe, the same team that won only nine games a year ago actually has something to play for in March. After the team’s 18-point thrashing at the hands of Missouri following their heartbreaking overtime loss to Kansas, the team slipped under .500 for the first time this season and a disappointing 2-7 in Big 12 play.
Since then they’ve gone 4-3, ended their 36-game conference, road losing streak, and posted their first 100 point game in Big 12 play since their overtime victory on Feb. 19, 2000. What changed?
“We just had a choice to either cave in or push through,” Higgins said. “Obviously, I don’t think we’re a bunch of people that would cave in. We’ve been through the worst of the worst, so I think everybody just decided that we have to push.”
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer David Starcer at david.starcer@colorado.edu.
