College basketball coaches, regardless of their personalities, backgrounds or levels of employment, often share the trait of speaking about an upcoming opponent as if it was one of John Wooden’s UCLA teams from the 1970s.
This reverence applies even when that foe looks more like the “Bad News Bears” than the dynastic Bruins of yesteryear.
So it was refreshing to hear Colorado men’s coach Tad Boyle apply a dose of historic reality last week regarding the state of the Pac-12 Conference.
“When we got in the league,” Boyle said, “Utah was a gimmie. USC was a gimmie. Washington State was a gimmie. You had four to six gimmies a year.
“There are no gimmies anymore.”
In a wildly unpredictable college basketball season that had already seen losses by 23 top-five teams through Thursday, a record for this point in the season, no league has provided a greater illustration of the sport’s parity than the Pac-12.
Last week began with eight of the league’s 12 teams within one game of first place, a logjam no other conference in the country could claim.
Sure, the Pac-12 may lack a so-called elite team. The highest-ranked team is defending champion Arizona, at No. 18, which will see that ranking drop after losing to Oregon in Tucson on Thursday night. But the top-to-bottom balance of the league — even 2-6 Arizona State owns a win this season over top-10 Texas A&M — has made for perhaps the league’s most intriguing season since it went to 12 teams in 2011.
“It’s game on every night,” Boyle said. “In the past you’d say, ‘You’ve got to bring it every night,’ but there were games you knew you could not play your best basketball and come out with a win. This year, if you have an off night, you’re going to lose.”
So what does this mean for the Buffs? At 16-5 overall and 5-3 in the league entering Sunday’s showdown with California in Boulder, CU has every reason to believe it has a legitimate shot at winning the Pac-12 crown. It already owns a victory over one of the league’s first-place teams (6-2 Oregon), and its remaining game against the Pac-12’s other first-place team (6-2 Washington) comes at home Feb. 13. And the Buffs skip a trip this season to Arizona, which had won 49 consecutive home games before losing Thursday. The Wildcats visit Boulder on Feb. 24.
An offense that begins inside with conference player of the year candidate Josh Scott and filters out to the Pac-12’s best 3-point attack makes CU dangerous enough to beat anyone in the league.
This season the Buffs have dutifully split their road games and have won their home games, with the exception of a painful buzzer-beating loss to Utah on Jan. 8.
Continue that formula, and CU just might emerge at the top of this crowded group of contenders.
CSU spirit. The tragedy that enveloped the Colorado State men’s basketball program and Emmanuel Omogbo this month was unthinkable. The junior forward, as you probably know by now, lost his parents and his young twin niece and nephew when a fire destroyed their Maryland home.
As horrific as that tragedy was, it showed the true spirit of the tight-knit college basketball community. Donations to CSU’s GoFundMe account set up for Omogbo poured in from across the country. Wyoming star Josh Adams implored the supporters of his team, a Border War rival of the Rams, to donate anything they could. Other college basketball players across the country took to social media to express their support.
My former colleague Don Williams of the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal chronicled the path of Omogbo’s junior college coach in Levelland, Texas, Steve Green, who jumped in his car and drove all the way to Colorado just to let Omogbo know he was there for him. Green then drove back the same night.
This all came on top of the varied and unwavering support provided to Omogbo by CSU’s administration, coaches and players, the latter group having chipped in to purchase their grieving teammate a TV, simply because he didn’t have one.
The bond of a team has been tested in Fort Collins, and in this way the Rams and college basketball have triumphed in the face of tragedy.
Nick Kosmider: 303-954-1516, nkosmider @denverpost.com or @nickkosmider
