CU Buffs defense on the rise, improved depth on display in 3-0 start

Defense was the focus all week for a Colorado men s basketball group that played very little of it during the first two games of the season The scoreboard revealed the visitors put up points on the Buffaloes in Boulder on Friday night But the reality is CU s defense took a dramatic step forward in a - win against Providence And that incremental improvement will be critical as the Buffs continue to try to flip the script from last year s last-place finish in the Big After allowing the season s first two opponents to shoot at least CU limited Providence to a mark That s still not the -or-below marker the Buffs have inevitably set as their tournament goal under head coach Tad Boyle but Boyle was pleased with his young squad s improved grasp of the defensive scouting record And CU s increased defensive vigor along the perimeter helped hold the Friars to a -for- mark on -pointers Providence had knocked down -pointers in its previous two games I felt like our scouting summary defense took a step forward A major step forward Boyle reported That s the good news Now we ve got to talk about playing defense without fouling Certain nights are going to be like that and Providence has got really good guards who know how to count and know how to get to the free throw line We ve got to figure out now how to guard without fouling We figure that out we ve got a chance to be pretty good The other thing I liked about our club was our attention to the scouting summary You could just see it You could sense it You could feel it It s one of the things I think I m really going to enjoy coaching this organization is their willingness and their desire to get better And we got better defensively against Providence As CU regroups on a relatively quick turnaround for a Monday night home date against Alabama State p m ESPN another encouraging sign through the first three games has been the Buffs improved depth Colorado has had three different leading scorers so far and two different leading rebounders In just three games the Buffs already have had two different freshmen come off the bench to put up at least points with Isaiah Johnson scoring in a season-opening win against Montana State before Alon Michaeli recorded points with six rebounds against Providence The Buffs managed to beat a quality Big East association in Providence with two of their top returning players Sebastian Rancik and Bangot Dak combining to go -for- with two assists both by Rancik and three turnovers The thing that makes this organization so potent and so dangerous as we progress through this season is we re deep Boyle commented We ve got guys like Alon coming off the bench We ve got a guy like Isaiah Johnson coming off the bench We ve got depth Jalin Holland gave us good minutes against Providence We ve got guys that aren t playing Ian Inman didn t play much Andrew Crawford didn t play at all We ve got guys on that bench that are capable players that may not get the minutes on certain nights But we ve got a lot of different guys that can help this gang win both offensively and defensively If we can stay together collectively we ll progress and get better as the season goes on It s a long season You never know what s going to happen