It wasn’t Colorado’s first experience this season with Iowa State.
Yet for the bulk of the CU men’s basketball team, it remained one of their first experiences battling one of the premier programs in the nation. It’s the sort of experience the Buffaloes will need to get accustomed to in a hurry.
CU opened its return season in the Big 12 Conference with a 79-69 defeat against No. 3 Iowa State at home on Monday night. The Buffs put up a much more commendable fight against the Cyclones than a month previous, when they were routed by 28 points at the Maui Invitational.
Still, the same issues that plagued the Buffs the first time against the Cyclones — an inability to clear defensive rebounds and, especially, too many turnovers — reared their ugly heads again. And if the Buffs expect to compete throughout Big 12 play, which continues on Saturday at Arizona State (4 p.m. MT, ESPN+), they will have to start learning from experience.
“Take care of the ball, for sure. And be more physical and rebound,” CU guard RJ Smith said when asked what the Buffs can learn from Monday’s setback. “This whole week it’s going to be the same way, trying to crash the boards. So we’ve got to prepare ourselves now and get ready.”
In some aspects, the Buffs played well enough to win. Iowa State brought a .513 season field goal percentage to Boulder but was held to a season-low .426 mark, with a 4-for-18 effort on 3-pointers. CU shot .491 and shared the ball well, finishing with 18 assists. It was the sixth consecutive game in which the Buffs recorded at least 18 assists.
Although Tad Boyle certainly was disappointed in the near-miss of recording a second top-five win in a month (the Buffs defeated then-No. 2 UConn in Maui), CU’s head coach reiterated it still was just the fourth high-caliber college basketball game for the bulk of his rotation, including the three November games in Hawaii.
Two of Monday’s starters, graduate transfers Trevor Baskin (Division II) and Elijah Malone (NAIA), are in their first seasons of Division I basketball. Smith made just his fourth career start after redshirting two years ago as a freshman and playing just the first seven games last year before getting sidelined by an injury. Sophomore forwards Bangot Dak and Assane Diop played sparingly last season and have improved steadily as key rotation players through the first 12 games, yet their inexperience was on display against the Cyclones as they combined for nine of the Buffs’ 19 turnovers.
Julian Hammond played like a steady senior guard, finishing with 21 points and four assists without a turnover, but even the Buffs’ other most experienced backcourt player, fourth-year guard Javon Ruffin, played sporadically the past two seasons due to recurring knee issues. And it was significant the Buffs faced ISU without one of their most experienced players in third-leading scorer Andrej Jakimovski, a four-year player at Washington State who was sidelined due to an illness. Jakimovski posted 18 points against ISU in Maui.
“It’s a disappointing loss, but one I think we can build on,” Boyle said. “I hate to say that after a loss because that’s not what I’m about, that’s not what our program is about, that’s not what our players are about. We’ve got to figure out a way to get better and win a game Saturday.
“We’ve got a lot of inexperienced guys at this level. Think of Elijah Malone, played NAIA basketball. The only three games he’s played in that were anything like this were the three games in Maui. Trevor Baskin, it’s his fourth game like this. RJ Smith, it’s his fourth game like this. Assane Diop, Bangot Dak, they didn’t play in these kind of games as freshmen. Especially the physicality of these games.”