Following a 15-point home loss to Tennessee aided by 15 Colorado turnovers, Tad Boyle didn’t hold much back in his postgame presser.
“Right now we’re an average team,” Boyle said. “At best, Colorado’s an average college basketball team right now, at best. We got to change that.”
Considering how young the Buffs are, this stretch of adversity is likely new territory for many players. Boyle was asked after practice on Tuesday if he believes the Buffs are battling any confidence issues in the midst of a mini losing streak.
“I believe our guys think they’re better than they are,” Boyle said. “That’s not a lack of confidence, it’s a lack of reality.”
He went on to blame many of the Buffs’ woes on a lack of consistency. We saw the Buffs have spurts of excellence against UCLA and Tennessee, but it was difficult for them to sustain anything for long.
“We’re an inconsistent team,” Boyle admitted. “I’m not saying we can’t be good, we can be. We’re a dangerous team. We’re not a good team, we’re an ordinary, average team that sometimes decides they want to play defensively and sometimes we want to rebound; sometimes we want to share the ball and move the ball offensively, and other times we don’t.”
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To get a player’s perspective, I caught up with Julian Hammond III. The poised freshman guard hit a three-pointer against Tennesse in what Boyle would agree was initially a winnable game for the Buffs.
“We feel like those teams (UCLA and Tennessee) are good teams that we can beat,” Hammond said. “We’re trying to bounce back this week and win our two games and then move on to the other weeks. We want to take it game by game and not look down the road.”
Looking down the road (which reporters are allowed to do), the Buffs have Eastern Washington, Milwaukee and CSU Bakersfield coming to Boulder in the next 11 days. While Boyle said Eastern Washington isn’t going to be easy on Wednesday, the Buffs an opportunity to correct their aforementioned issues before No. 8 Kansas arrives.