Colorado's board work is why they are winning

Its time to start paying attention to Colorado again.

The Buffaloes were considered by just about everyone to be the Big XII's sleeper this season. They were returning some experience and had arguably the best 1-2 punch in the conference in Alec Burks and Cory Higgins. But then Colorado lost to San Francisco. Then came a loss to Harvard by 16 points. And after the Buffs lost to New Mexico, they were doomed to head into conference play with four losses on their resume and a marquee win over the best of the others in the Mountain West, Colorado State.

On Saturday, Colorado reignited interest and optimism when they knocked off then-No. 8 Missouri at home, 89-76. Burks had 36 points and eight rebounds while Higgins added 18 points and 10 boards. There is no way that those two were going to be able to keep up that level of production.

Could Colorado win when they didn't combine for 54 points and 18 rebounds?

It only took one game to find out.


On Wednesday night, the Buffs went into Bramlage Coliseum and knocked off reeling Kansas State to start Big XII play off 2-0. And they did it despite off nights from both of their stars. Burks finished with 12 points, but he shot 4-15 from the field and turned the ball over six times (a number that, after watching the game, actually seems low). Higgins was a non-factor, as he managed to get up just four shots to finish with nine points.

Last night's star was Levi Knutson, who came off the bench to pour in 20 points on 6-8 shooting from three. All six of those treys came in two Colorado surges -- when they erased an early 11 point lead in the first half and when they built an 11 point lead of their own in the second half. Colorado also got nice performances out of Marcus Relphorde, who had 12 points and four steals, and Andre Roberson, who came off the bench to chip in nine points and nine rebounds, five of which were offensive.

In fact, if you were to pinpoint a reason for these two wins, you have to look at the rebounding, of which Roberson leads the way with 7.5 rpg. Colorado doesn't really have a big body on their roster, which is a big reason why many analysts had them somewhere in the middle of the conference despite having two potential NBA draft picks. According to Kenpom, Colorado was getting 35.4% of their potential offensive rebounds (OR%) while allowing opponent's a 32.2 OR%. Here are their splits from the past two games:

• vs. Missouri: CU - 42.1 OR%; Mizzou - 26.2 OR%
• @ Kansas State: CU- 46.7 OR%; KSU - 35.1 OR%
  

How about this stat -- Kansas State's size up front is what made many people put them in the top five in the preseason. The two leading rebounders in last night's game? Alec Burks, a 6'6" wing, and Andre Roberson, a 6'7" wing.

If Colorado can continue to rebound like that, they aren't going to need 54 points and 18 rebounds out of Alec Burks and Cory Higgins.