SPOKANE — On Wednesday, the onus fell on the guards of the Colorado men’s basketball team to slow down Markelle Fultz and the other sharpshooters from the University of Washington.
It didn’t happen. Fultz, widely projected as the top overall pick in the NBA draft, scored a career-best 37 points while David Crisp went 4-for-5 on 3-pointers in the second half and overtime, including a pair of back-breakers down the stretch.
On Saturday afternoon at the Buffaloes’ defensive challenge will fall upon their big men as CU attempts to finally end the program’s first 0-6 start in league play in 24 years.
“They’ve got good bigs,” CU head coach Tad Boyle said. “Conor Clifford is a guy who can really score on the block. As good a low-post scorer as we’ve got in our league and nobody talks about him. Soft hands, a big, wide body. Tough in terms of scoring the ball on the block. With Josh Scott we couldn’t guard him with one guy. Josh Scott’s not here. Tough for one of our guys to guard him mano-a-mano on the block.”
Even with Scott in the mix Clifford enjoyed a big game for the Cougars when CU visited last year, going 8-for-9 from the floor before finishing with 18 points. Entering Saturday’s Pac-12 battle Clifford ranks seventh in the league with a .571 field goal percentage.
Yet even more pressing for the Buffs will be the effort to contain WSU’s Josh Hawkinson, the “double-double machine” as described by Boyle. Hawkinson averages a double-double with 15.4 points and 10.6 rebounds per game. Hawkinson is one of three players who rank in the league’s top 10 in both scoring and rebounding, and he set a program single-season record with 20 double-doubles in each of the past seasons.
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