BOULDER — Cory Higgins lit it up inside, outside and everywhere in between during a 28-point second half tour de force Wednesday night. He and his Colorado teammates wanted to get back inside their refurbished locker room — and wanted to lock out Colorado State’s own one-man charge by center Dan Vandervieren.
Higgins’ 12-2 run in the second half and career-high 33 points exploded CU past CSU 75-56 before 5,963 fans at the Coors Events Center.
“He was awesome, just absolutely awesome,” said CU coach Jeff Bzdelik, who banished the team from its locker room after a lackluster effort against TCU last week. “He just opened up that game. The most important thing is he got it within the offense.”
The Buffs trailed by as many as eight points before Higgins erupted. His second-half scoring line included 9-for-10 from the floor, 7-for-7 from the foul line, three steals and making all three shots behind the arc.
“We didn’t have an answer for him in any way, shape, or form,” CSU coach Tim Miles said. He added, “When (Higgins) started making 3s, we knew we were going to have a problem.”
Higgins, who came in averaging 16 points, took the TCU loss to heart. He said he had games like his career-best 33 points in high school, but never a half like his second half.
“This feeling should really make us want to play like this every night,” Higgins said. “The feeling we had last week against TCU was bad, and we don’t ever want to feel that again.”
As for his numbers, he said: “I just wanted to be aggressive within the offense. I didn’t want to force anything, and the opportunities presented themselves in the second half, and I was able to knock them down.”
The second half played out as an individual battle between Higgins and Vandervieren, a 6-10 center. Neither factored much in the first half.
Higgins all but decided the game when he sliced between Vandervieren and CSU guard Marcus Walker for a basket, a foul and a 60-54 lead with 6:05 left.
The Buffs (4-3) finished with a 20-2 run against CSU (3-6).
Vandervieren paced the Rams to start the second half after the in-state rivals came out of intermission in a 28-all tie. He scored inside on four straight trips, lifting the Rams to a 38-32 lead with 16:29 left. Bzdelik called a timeout and inserted 6-9 freshman Trey Eckloff, less than a year removed from Cherry Creek, to counter CSU’s Purdue transfer.
The Buffs missed their first shot after a timeout and Vandervieren went in for his second straight dunk and 10th straight point. He finished with a team-high 16 points, all in the second half.
Footnotes:
Miles said he hadn’t seen CU’s 1-3-1 zone on film. It turns out Bzdelik had never run it before. . . . CU forward Casey Crawford, who sat out with a foot injury, will have an MRI on Friday. . . . Bzdelik said he e-mailed the CU student body that its support was awesome but the Buffs weren’t against TCU. . . . Bzdelik is 6-0 for his career against the Rams.
Natalie Meisler: 303-954-1295 or nmeisler@denverpost.com
This article has been corrected in this online archive. Originally, due to a reporting error, it included an incorrect second-half point total for Cory Higgins.
