This was a good, solid, well-earned win. Remember, mighty ASU, ranked No. 23 at the time, escaped GCU by only one point. You don't see many Tad Boyle teams allow a 51% make rate and get out-rebounded by double digits and win, so at the bare minimum, take this one for what it's worth.
Perhaps that speaks to the strength of this year's team that we're still gauging. McKinley Wright IV's performance down the stretch of this game was nothing short of All-American-esque. He scored 10 of Colorado final 12 points and all night he was looking sharp.
The turnovers stay down, his shooting percentage stays extremely robust and overall, he's playing some damn good hoops.
Jeriah Horne might be forcing himself into the starting lineup, even though he seems to be thriving off the bench and does usually see a starter's minutes.
I thought he, Evan Battey and Dallas Walton had a lot of responsibility handling Grand Canyon's bigs — that roster is extremely long and tough. At the end of the day, more helping hands needed to chip in on the glass but obviously, that wasn't the case, evidenced by the 33-20 boards discrepancy in favor of the Antelopes.
Not a trend to repeat moving forward. Imagine if CU had been that bad on the glass but shot in the 35% range: this would have been a slaughter.
Moving on, I thought tonight was a great showcase of how important it is to have Eli Parquet out on the floor: he may only score 5-8ish points per game, but wow is he shutdown in 1-v-1 coverage — when guys try to dance around the three-point line, work the perimeter or drive to the rim, Parquet is on them like white on rice.
As a complete and total juxtaposition to that, look at how often Maddox Daniels got smoked in 1-v-1 tonight. I counted three drives to the rim that he allowed baskets on; for all the talk of his physique improving as well as his defense, I'm not convinced he has the nightly offensive output that warrants rolling the dice on his defense and giving him extended minutes.
GCU is going to win some games this year.
Good win, good end to non-conference play: Wright IV electric as strong second half lifts Colorado over GCU, 74-64
Perhaps that speaks to the strength of this year's team that we're still gauging. McKinley Wright IV's performance down the stretch of this game was nothing short of All-American-esque. He scored 10 of Colorado final 12 points and all night he was looking sharp.
The turnovers stay down, his shooting percentage stays extremely robust and overall, he's playing some damn good hoops.
Jeriah Horne might be forcing himself into the starting lineup, even though he seems to be thriving off the bench and does usually see a starter's minutes.
I thought he, Evan Battey and Dallas Walton had a lot of responsibility handling Grand Canyon's bigs — that roster is extremely long and tough. At the end of the day, more helping hands needed to chip in on the glass but obviously, that wasn't the case, evidenced by the 33-20 boards discrepancy in favor of the Antelopes.
Not a trend to repeat moving forward. Imagine if CU had been that bad on the glass but shot in the 35% range: this would have been a slaughter.
Moving on, I thought tonight was a great showcase of how important it is to have Eli Parquet out on the floor: he may only score 5-8ish points per game, but wow is he shutdown in 1-v-1 coverage — when guys try to dance around the three-point line, work the perimeter or drive to the rim, Parquet is on them like white on rice.
As a complete and total juxtaposition to that, look at how often Maddox Daniels got smoked in 1-v-1 tonight. I counted three drives to the rim that he allowed baskets on; for all the talk of his physique improving as well as his defense, I'm not convinced he has the nightly offensive output that warrants rolling the dice on his defense and giving him extended minutes.
GCU is going to win some games this year.
Good win, good end to non-conference play: Wright IV electric as strong second half lifts Colorado over GCU, 74-64
