Men's basketball notes: Eddie Lampkin Jr. sparking CU Buffs' attack

Mar. 23—INDIANAPOLIS — NBA Hall of Famer Scottie Pippen was one of the first players who incited the positional description of a point-forward.

It perhaps is time to dub Colorado's Eddie Lampkin Jr. as the Buffaloes' point-center.

CU has been at its best this season when Lampkin has made plays for his teammates, a trait that was on full display during the Buffs' stirring 102-100 win against Florida in the first round of the NCAA Tournament on Friday.

Lampkin finished with five assists, his second-highest total of the season. After enduring a slight midseason assists slump — he posted only 17 in a 12-game stretch between Jan. 13 and Feb. 28 — Lampkin goes into Sunday's second-round showdown against Marquette on a streak of eight consecutive games with multiple assists, averaging 2.9 during that span.

"Until they get on your campus and kind of have some practices, you don't really know how you're going to use them or how you can use them," CU head coach Tad Boyle said of the transfer from TCU. "But with Eddie, pretty early we found out he is a very willing and good passer as a big. It's nice for guards and perimeter players to know if they throw it in to him, they're not throwing into a black hole. Because there's some post guys, when they get it, they're shooting it. Eddie's not that. He creates double-teams because he's so big and strong, and when he creates double-teams and passes out of it, we're playing advantage basketball."

Opportunity knocks

The Buffs will have an opportunity to advance to the Sweet 16 for the first time in the program's modern history in the NCAA Tournament. CU is 0-3 in second-round games (again, in the seeding era of the tournament), losing to Florida State in the most recent tourney appearance in 2021. CU also lost to Baylor in the 2012 second round, and the Chauncey Billups-led Buffs of 1997 lost to North Carolina in the second round.

"I'm not sure that it's a sense of pressure. We're grateful for the opportunity," CU guard J'Vonne Hadley said. "It's special. It would mean a lot to the community in general, especially us and the coaching staff. It's going to be a good game. I think everybody knows that. We don't necessarily have to do anything out of the ordinary like we've been doing the whole year. We've got to go out and play our game. They're a good team. A great team. Credit to them. But we are, too."

Disconnecting

After KJ Simpson blew up the big dance dreams of Florida, his own phone began blowing up with messages. So much so, Simpson had to set it aside for a while.

Simpson said recent CU graduates like McKinley Wright IV and former teammates like Evan Battey and Jabari Walker were among his well-wishers after his winning baseline jumper on Friday with 1.7 seconds remaining.

"It was kind of surreal before it even hit me to understand what had happened," Simpson said. "I got a lot of love, especially the CU fan base. McKinley, Evan, those guys. Jabari hit me up. Some CU football players. But it was just overall love from childhood friends, from family back home tuning in, watching the game. But it was kind of surreal, kind of crazy to have all that happen. It's something you dream about though. That's something you cherish. And I'm just thankful that it happened."

Quotable

"It doesn't seem like he gets rattled very often, if ever. He has a really good way about him where you can tell he's confident, but he's not really caught up in anything extracurricular." — Marquette coach Shaka Smart on Simpson

Notable

Simpson has moved into third on CU's season scoring list (708) and needs 21 to tie Cliff Meely for second (729 in 1970-71). Simpson is tied with Jay Humphries for fourth on the season assists list with 174 and needs two more to pass Wright's 175 in 2017-18. ... Marquette guard Kam Jones leads the Golden Eagles in scoring at 17.1 points per game, but he has averaged 23.8 points with a .563 shooting percentage over the past 10 games. ... Before Friday's win, only two CU players had recorded at least five assists in an NCAA Tournament game — Wright with 13 against Georgetown in 2021, and Howard Frier with five against North Carolina in 1997. Three Buffs had five assists against Florida (Lampkin, Simpson and Tristan da Silva). ... Assuming da Silva starts against Marquette, it will be his 124th game played at CU, tying Josh Scott for 13th all-time, and his 98th start, which will rank 14th all-time.