That 33-point effort by Colorado’s Cory Higgins last week against Colorado State evidently turned some heads around the Big 12 Conference.
On Monday, the sophomore guard became the first member of the CU men’s basketball team to earn Big 12 player-of-the-week honors in almost three years — since Richard Roby received the award in back-to-back weeks in January, 2006.
Higgins scored 28 of his career-best 33 points in the second half, helping Colorado (4-3) erase an eight-point deficit. The 28 second-half points ranks third in school history for a half. Higgins finished with the most points in a game at the Coors Events Center since CU’s Michel Morandais scored 33 against visiting Missouri on Feb. 22, 2002.
“(Higgins) had a special game, at a special time,” Colorado coach Jeff Bzdelik said Monday on the Big 12 teleconference. “What was special about it was, he scored within the framework of the offense. There wasn’t one play designed for him.
“He did a great job of reading the defenders. His teammates did a great job of passing him the ball. And he was able to knock down shots and score in a variety of ways.”
Higgins leads Buffaloes scorers with 18.4 points per game.
“He’s really coming into his own now,” Bzdelik said.
CRAWFORD’S ANKLE IMPROVING
Sophomore forward Casey Crawford was able to participate in some parts of practice on Sunday and could be ready for Friday’s 7 p.m. home game against Prairie View A&M, Bzdelik said.
Crawford sat out the Dec. 10 game against CSU with an ankle injury that an MRI confirmed to be a ligament sprain.
“We’ll progress through the week with aggressive rehab,” Bzdelik said of Crawford. “There is hope that Casey will be able to play on Friday.”
LONG BREAK
The date with Prairie View A&M on Friday will end a stretch of eight full days off between games. This is finals week on the CU campus.
“In some ways (the break) is a benefit and in some ways it’s not,” Bzdelik said. “It’s good that we can just worry about ourselves and get better individually and as a team, and not have to prepare (for an opponent).
“It’s bad because we played very well with great effort against Colorado State and it would have been nice to play a game (sooner) to keep that momentum going.”
Tom Kensler: 303-954-1280 or tkensler@denverpost.com
