The Colorado Buffaloes are riding one of the most puzzling rollercoasters in college basketball right now. In the span of just a few weeks, they’ve managed to knock off TCU and Arizona State-two solid wins that showed flashes of what this team can be. But in that same stretch, they’ve also taken three gut-punch losses that exposed some of their most glaring weaknesses.
Let’s start with the damage. A 30-point loss to Iowa State on Jan.
- A 19-point defeat at Baylor on Feb.
- And then the one that really stung-a 34-point blowout at the hands of Texas Tech.
That last one was the kind of loss that forces a program to look in the mirror.
Head coach Tad Boyle didn’t sugarcoat it. In fact, he didn’t even try.
“That was just a good old-fashioned a**-whooping,” Boyle said postgame, visibly frustrated. “There’s just no other way to say it.”
He wasn’t wrong. Texas Tech took it to Colorado from the jump, imposing their will physically and mentally. The Red Raiders played with a level of toughness that Colorado simply couldn’t match-and Boyle acknowledged as much.
“They have a model with their program that the toughest team wins,” he said. “There wasn’t any question who the tougher team was tonight. That was Texas Tech, and we weren’t.”
The numbers back him up. The Red Raiders dominated the glass, outrebounding the Buffs 45-27.
Forward JT Toppin was a force, pulling down 18 boards-four of them on the offensive end. Colorado’s inability to compete on the glass has been a theme throughout Big 12 play, and it’s becoming more than just a concern-it’s a liability.
Boyle’s frustration boiled over in the postgame press conference, where he didn’t hold back.
“We deserve to be on a 6 a.m. flight out of Lubbock, commercial, Southwest, whatever airline you choose,” he said. “We don’t deserve a charter flight back to Boulder tonight.
We got one. We paid for it.
But we wasted our money. We wasted our university’s money.
That’s on me.”
That kind of accountability from a head coach isn’t just rare-it’s telling. Boyle’s been around long enough to know when a team’s effort doesn’t meet the standard. And when he uses the word “embarrassed”-a word he admits he rarely says-you know the performance cut deep.
Now, the road doesn’t get any easier. Up next is a tough trip to Provo to face No.
22 BYU, a team that’s been rock-solid at home all season. After that, the Buffs return to Boulder for more manageable matchups against Oklahoma State and Kansas State-games they’ll need to take advantage of if they want to keep postseason hopes alive.
Despite the inconsistency, Colorado has already improved on last year’s conference win total. They’re sitting at 4-8 in Big 12 play, up from 3 wins a season ago.
But the final stretch is a gauntlet: No. 3 Houston, Utah, and No.
1 Arizona. That’s a brutal closing act for any team, let alone one still searching for its identity.
If the Buffs can scratch out a few more wins and finish 7-11 in conference play, it would be a notable step forward in a season that’s seen more than its fair share of growing pains. But to get there, they’ll need to find some consistency-and fast. Because right now, Colorado looks like a team that can beat you one night and beat itself the next.
The talent is there. The question is whether the toughness will follow.