Men’s basketball notes: RJ Smith returns to CU Buffs starting lineup

Colorado’s previous matchup against Central Florida didn’t mark the beginning of RJ Smith’s prolonged slump. Yet it certainly was a night the third-year guard would rather forget.

After playing the previous six games off the bench, Smith returned to the starting lineup for Saturday’s rematch and played a key role in the Buffaloes’ 76-63 victory, a win that ended a 13-game losing streak that was the second-longest in program history.

Smith endured a jersey switch during the game, as a little blood stained his usual No. 5, forcing him to don a generic No. 14 with no name on the back.

“Defense. He gives us a defensive presence at that guard position,” CU head coach Tad Boyle said about giving Smith his first start since Jan. 21 against BYU. “He went through a stretch where he was not playing very good. His body language was not very good. It’s good to have him back.”

Smith was one of CU’s pleasant surprises during nonconference play, and he opened the Big 12 schedule by going 3-for-6 with a season with a career-high 14 points against then-No. 3 Iowa State.

Two games later, Smith suffered a second straight 0-for-3 game from the arc at UCF. And despite grabbing a career-high eight rebounds that night, he finished with six turnovers without an assist.

Smith struggled through the bulk of Big 12 play, but after showing signs of emerging from that slump in recent games, he made amends for his previous performance against UCF on Saturday. Smith was just 2-for-5 from the field, but he went 4-for-4 at the free throw line — matching his total of free throw attempts previously over the entire Big 12 schedule — before finishing with nine points, six rebounds and one assist without a turnover in 31 minutes.

“When you go through a losing streak like that, we’ve still got some guys that mentally are not where they need to be,” Boyle said. “RJ was there for a stretch there this season. But he’s come out the other side of it. That’s a positive. He sat for two years. He’s like a freshman.”

White’s wisdom

Former CU Buffs standout and Boston Celtics guard Derrick White was in attendance as part of the ceremonies unveiling his jersey on CU’s new Wall of Honor.

White addressed the team prior to the game and offered a unique perspective for a club eager to end its 0-13 start in Big 12 play. White’s lone active season at CU, 2016-17, featured a team with much higher expectations than this year’s squad, but the Buffs stumbled to an 0-7 start in the Pac-12 and ultimately were relegated to the NIT where, ironically, they lost at Central Florida in the first round.

“I thought the message that he sent them was spot-on,” Boyle said. “He’s a smart guy. Obviously he’s a really smart player. I told him he might have a future in coaching. He just talked about doing the little things. Derrick went through it as a player. He talked about just doing the little things and coming to work every day and trying to get better. Our guys did that (Saturday).”

42-year memories

UCF coach Johnny Dawkins had visited the Events Center plenty of times during his tenure as the head coach at Stanford, but he actually visited Boulder once during his collegiate playing days at Duke.

The Blue Devils have visited the Events Center just once, with the Buffs posting a 79-70 win against Duke on Dec. 2, 1982. Duke was not yet a national power, and that season Dawkins was part of a freshman class that included Mark Alarie and Jay Bilas that soon would help turn Duke into a perennial power.

“I remember losing the game. And I remember Jay Humphries,” Dawkins said. “He was a pretty darn good player. I see his name in the rafters. Great player, great guy. Those are the two things I remember.”

Notable

UCF played without third-leading scorer Jordan Ivy-Curry, who was sidelined due to an undisclosed injury. Dawkins described Ivy-Curry’s status as “day to day,” but the Knights received a lift from little-used backup Nils Machowski. Machowski had scored more than four points just once this season, recording six in the second game of the season, but he responded when called upon on Saturday, going 5-for-5 with 13 points and five rebounds. … CU’s Andrej Jakimovski has gone 6-for-13 on 3-pointers in the past two games. … Freshman Sebastian Rancik finished with 10 points, giving him consecutive double-digit scoring efforts for the first time in his career.