Thanks to his time at Northern Colorado, Tad Boyle always will have a soft spot for the Big Sky Conference.
The Buffaloes have seen plenty of the Big Sky so far this season. CU is set to face the third of its four Big Sky foes on Wednesday night at the CU Events Center as the Buffs and Portland State square off for the first time (7 p.m., ESPN+).
CU (9-1) opened the season with wins against Big Sky foes Montana State and Eastern Washington.
“Portland State’s a good team,” Boyle said. “The Big Sky’s a good league. We know that already. We found that out the first two weeks of the season. We’ll find out what kind of strides we’ve taken as a program since early November. Because, again, Portland State, they’re a legit team. Their top six guys can play a lot of different places. Not just the Big Sky, they can play a lot of places.”
Portland State was picked second in the preseason Big Sky polls for the coaches as well as the media. But the first two Big Sky foes CU faced gave the Buffs all they could handle. The Bobcats improved to just 5-7 with a Tuesday night road win against Cal Poly, but Montana State has played a road-heavy slate that includes a narrow loss at Stanford, which CU faces on Saturday night in Phoenix. Montana State also lost in overtime at Utah State and suffered a four-point loss at Boise State.
Eastern Washington is just 2-8 but played six of the first seven games on the road, including losses at CU and UCLA, which has been in and out of the top 25 and was ranked 12th when the Eagles visited.
CU won’t be done with the scrappy Big Sky foes after Wednesday’s matchup with the Vikings. On Dec. 28, the Buffs complete nonconference play with a home date against Northern Colorado, which took No. 19 Texas Tech down to the wire on the road Tuesday night before dropping a 101-90 decision.
Notable
CU was ranked 46th in Wednesday’s NET rankings. Portland State was at No. 187. The Vikings are 6-3 but three of those wins against lower-division opponents (Northwest Indian, Evergreen State, George Fox) aren’t recognized for NET ranking purposes. … Portland State is just 2-13 all-time against current Big 12 Conference members. Both wins were against Arizona State when ASU was in the Pac-10. … PSU’s win earlier this week against Division III George Fox was the 900th win in program history. … Boyle was just 1-7 against Portland State during his four seasons as the head coach at Northern Colorado. … The Vikings lead the Big Sky with 14.7 forced turnovers per game.
