Colorado's rough offensive night ends in loss to Oregon State

Earlier this week, the Colorado men’s basketball team departed for the Pacific Northwest with an opportunity to turn around its season. At 12-9, the Buffs had endured their share of bumps, but against two teams they beat handily earlier this month, they had the chance to pick up two wins and enhance their footing for the final weeks before Selection Sunday.

Instead, they’ll head back to Boulder empty-handed.

Two nights after falling by six at Oregon, Colorado suffered an even more gutting fate 40 miles to the north, losing to Oregon State Saturday night, 60-52.

The defeat was the Buffs’ fifth in their past six games, dropping a team that began the month with valid NCAA Tournament aspirations to 12-11 overall and 4-8 in Pac-12 play.

The most recent of those losses was one of the most difficult to stomach.

Just 21 days earlier, Colorado had dominated Oregon State, bludgeoning the Beavers by 20, 62-42, while dominating virtually every facet of the game. Oregon State’s circumstances had only improved so much since that day. Heading into Saturday’s matchup, the Beavers were 2-8 in conference play, putting them in last place in the Pac-12, and had come up short in seven of their past eight games.

Against the Buffs, though, Oregon State had its way.

The Beavers outscored the Buffs, 35-26, in the second half, with 17 of those points coming from freshman guard Jordan Pope, the team’s leading scorer at 12.3 points per game. In those final 20 minutes, Colorado missed 25 of its 36 shots, including 11 of its 14 3-pointers.

Tristan da Silva led the way for the Buffs, finishing with team highs in points (22) and rebounds (15), the latter of which was a career high by a wide margin. It marked the second time in the junior forward’s career that he recorded a double-double.

Beyond da Silva, Colorado didn’t get much.

Aside from da Silva and J’Vonne Hadley, who had 11 points and was the only other Buffs player to finish in double figures, Colorado’s seven other players who saw action Saturday combined for just 19 points on seven of 34 shooting (20.6%). No other player besides da Silva scored in the final 7:21. Those struggles were embodied by KJ Simpson, the Buffs’ leading scorer this season, who had a season-low four points and missed 12 of his 13 shots.

Such a horrid result wasn’t always a certainty.

The Buffs led by as many as seven in the first half. In those moments, it looked as though it would be on its way to another comfortable victory against the Pac-12’s cellar-dweller, a team that won all of three games last season.

From there, however, things unraveled for Colorado. Leading by two, 36-34, with 13 minutes remaining after a Lawson Lovering dunk, the Buffs watched as Oregon State rattled off 11 unanswered points, capped off by a deep, contested and high-arcing 3 from Pope as the shot clock expired. It was one of five 3s, on seven attempts, that Pope made in the second half.

As the Beavers were finding their footing offensively, their opponent was doing anything but. Oregon State’s 11-0 run was made possible by a stretch of 5:47 in which Colorado failed to make a field goal. Even when the Beavers went cold, the Buffs failed to capitalize. Oregon State failed to make a shot in the final 4:59, but even in that time, it still outscored Colorado, 8-5. The Buffs even struggled to score from the free-throw line, where they went three of seven.

Colorado will look to regroup next week with home games against the Pac-12’s two Bay Area schools. It will need to. After their most recent loss, the Buffs uphill climb for the final eight games just got that much steeper.