FORT COLLINS — For weeks, Tad Boyle has felt like the boy who cried wolf.

Even though Colorado was off to its best start (8-0) since the 1949-50 season, Boyle knew there was plenty of room for improvement, particularly defensively. 

The Buffaloes coach also knew Saturday’s game against rival Colorado State would be arguably the team’s biggest challenge yet. On the road, in a hostile environment and against the best 3-point shooting team in the country.

Nothing CSU did in the 91-86 win at Moby Arena was a secret. The Rams took over 62% of their shots from beyond the arc and made over 51% of those 3-pointers.

“Nobody listened to me. Nobody listened to our scouting report, I can tell you that. Nobody executed the game plan,” Boyle said. “You let a team make 18 threes, it’s gonna be hard to win, no matter who you play, where you play. Credit goes to CSU; they executed their game plan offensively infinitely better than the Buffs executed their game plan defensively. 

“We shoot 63%, you score 86 points in an opponent’s building and that’s good enough to win if you can guard anything or anybody, just a little bit, but we didn’t do it and it’s really frustrating, we’ll never get this opportunity back again and we’re gonna have to live with this.”

It’s a similar feeling to two years ago, when the Buffs last visited Fort Collins. With three future NBA players and a team that would go on to set a program record for wins, CU couldn’t stop a CSU team that also went on to make the NCAA Tournament in another high-scoring affair. 

Just like that game, the Buffs trailed at halftime Saturday after a difficult first 20 minutes. But this time, they battled back. They finally got some stops on defense, went on a 21-4 run, and led 72-68 with under four minutes to play. 

“What’s frustrating to me is we came back and took control of the game,” Boyle said. “The one thing I’ll say about our guys’ competitive spirit and toughness is it’s there. You don’t come back in an environment like this and take the lead (without that), but we can’t sustain because we can’t get stops.”

CU was promptly outscored by nine points the rest of the way as all its hard work was wasted by the one thing Boyle has been telling them will come back to bite them at some point: defense.

“The problem with our team is not our offense. The problem is we don’t have any collective pride defensively,” Boyle said. “We lost this game (Saturday) because we didn’t execute the defensive game plan. I’d like to say there’s a lot of other things that went into this. Guarding the 3-point line, which we knew coming in was the key to the game, and we didn’t do it. We’ve got nobody to blame but ourselves. 

“Obviously, these guys aren’t listening to their coach, they’re not listening to their coaching staff, they’re not listening to the scouting report. Maybe they just don’t believe in us, but maybe they will now.”

The Buffs now have four nonconference games remaining before Big 12 play begins in the first week of January. There’s still a decent chance Boyle’s group is 12-1 heading into Big 12 play because, like CSU, they, too, have one of the best offenses in the country. But the No. 141-ranked defense, per Ken Pomeory’s efficiency rankings, isn’t going to cut it.

Boyle just hopes his consistent message will finally get through to his players. 

“Now, maybe the boy who cried wolf knows something,” Boyle said. “Maybe this will wake us up. I don’t know. Time will tell. We’ll figure it out. I’m not gonna change what we do. I’m not gonna change the standards of this program. Our standard is six or fewer made threes for a game — for a game. They had 10 in the first half and eight in the second half. I don’t know what to say.”