After watching his team get drubbed and run out of the gym yet again on the road, Tad Boyle was feeling wistful and a little nostalgic. Certainly not in a good way.
The Colorado men’s basketball team had just gotten rolled by No. 16 Texas Tech, which thumped the Buffaloes 78-44 on Wednesday night. The Buffaloes were about to board a chartered jet to return to Boulder, but Boyle was of the opinion the comforts of Big 12 travel weren’t something the Buffs deserved after an unsightly 34-point loss.
“I started my career as the head coach at Northern Colorado in the Big Sky,” Boyle said. “We’d travel to Bozeman, Montana; and Missoula; Utah; Pocatello, Idaho. We would always fly commercial. You’d lose on the road, and you’d get up at five o’clock in the morning, you’d catch a 6 a.m. flight back to Denver and then drive an hour to Greeley. That’s what we deserve right now.
“We deserve to be on a 6 a.m. flight out of Lubbock. We don’t deserve a charter flight back to Boulder. We got one. We paid for it. We wasted our money, we wasted our university’s money. And that’s on me. I’ll take the ownership of this because I’m the head coach.”
It was a more comfortable journey home late Wednesday night than the one Boyle envisioned, but even getting forced into more cramped seating on a commercial jet wouldn’t have compared to the pain the Buffs endured at Texas Tech.
After opening Big 12 play with a win at Arizona State, a victory that snapped a 12-game losing streak in true road games, the Buffs have performed progressively worse in each subsequent road game.
Bad starts doomed CU during a two-game trip to Cincinnati and West Virginia, but the Buffs were competitive in both defeats. The same can’t be said for the last three road games — Iowa State, Baylor and Texas Tech — as the Buffs were buried quickly after tipoff in all three contests.
Last year’s Big 12 last-place CU team finished just 3-17 in conference play while recording the eighth 20-loss season in program history. Yet even that team didn’t lose the way the Buffs are now, dropping the past three road games by an average of 27.7 points. CU’s worst loss, margin-wise, on the road in Big 12 play last year was a 20-point decision in the first conference road game at Arizona State, but the later road dates proved more palatable and competitive, even in defeat.
The quick chartered trip home will at least allow the Buffs an opportunity to regroup ahead of yet another demanding road challenge at No. 22 BYU on Saturday (2 p.m. MT, Fox Sports 1). CU (14-11, 4-8 Big 12) has lost 12 consecutive games against teams ranked in the Associated Press Top 25 — the longest such streak in 16 seasons under Boyle — and the Buffs have lost 24 consecutive true road games against top 25 foes.
“That’s the toughness, or lack thereof, that I’m talking about — 17 offensive rebounds (for Texas Tech),” Boyle said. “When you can’t make a shot, maybe you can go get an offensive rebound and a get a putback. But we’re not tough enough to do that. Texas Tech is. The toughest team won.”