Colorado Buffaloes Dominate Vincenza All-Stars in Italy

The Colorado Buffaloes continue moving through Italy as if they’re being led by Dwight D. Eisenhower wearing a Tad Boyle disguise. (They look similar enough.) After having the weekend off to be tourists, the Buffs beat the Vincenza All-Stars, 87-54, as they improve to 3-0 on their pre-season campaign.

Like the last two games, we’re left with only a box score to decipher the game:

McKinley Wright and George King have started all three games and they continue to look impressive. McKinley upped his usage rate as he picked up 13 points and 4 assists in 23 minutes — he’s a very promising guard who could start from day one — and King scored an efficient 10 points. Deleon Brown, Namon Wright and Tory Miller-Stewart were the other starters and they were also solid. Brown only shot 2-7 and had 4 fouls, but he did grab 3 steals and a block. Namon is playing increasingly more minutes and with his 6 three-point attempts, he’s showing that he will likely be the Buffs’ primary perimeter scorer. Miller-Stewart, meanwhile, was superb as he grabbed seemingly every rebound within reach as he had 9 boards in just 15 minutes. TMS also had an efficient 8 points and only had one foul.

The bench wasn’t nearly as good as it was last game — not that the same players were on the bench — but they were good enough. Dom Collier was 0-4 on threes and 2-10 from the field, but he got to the line and dished out 5 assists. D’Shawn Schwartz struggled shooting as well, but he did grab 6 rebounds. Dallas Walton continues to show his potential as he had 7 points and 8 rebounds in only 17 minutes. The most impressive players from the bench, and maybe from the Buffs as a whole, were Tyler Bey and Lucas Siewert. Bey is a well-rounded freshman with star potential on the defensive end, and he showed that skillset with 6 points, 5 rebounds, 2 steals, 2 blocks and 2 assists. Siewert showed his worth as he had 6 points on 2-3 shooting, 7 rebounds, 2 assists, 4 steals and a block.

The main thing for the Buffs in this showing is that they were monstrous on the boards. They outrebounded the Vincenza All-Stars 58-39 and had a whopping 22 offensive rebounds. The Buffs struggled a bit with shooting — 41% from the field, 26% from the field, 56% from the line — but they won the Tad Boyle way: defense and rebounding.

Update: As two commenters pointed out, there was a mysterious name in the box score, A.J. Martinka. According to his bio on CUBuffs.com, Martinka is a freshman 6’5 guard from Stanwood, Washington. That’s literally all it says. He’s presumably a walk-on. Based on a Google image search, he kind of looks like the antagonist in 17 Again.