At halftime of Colorado’s Saturday night game against No. 9 UCLA, the Buffs trailed the Bruins by 15 and looked firmly on pace to lose soundly.

But down the stretch of the second half, little by little, the Buffaloes clawed their way back into things, and a Jabari Walker dunk with 1:54 to play trimmed UCLA’s lead to one, 62-61.

Unfortunately for CU (12-6, 4-4 Pac-12), the Bruins always seemed to have a clutch shot in store to answer any attempts by the Buffs to steal the lead back.

“We’ve got to give credit to them,” K.J. Simpson said after the loss. “That’s a tough team. They’re ranked for a reason. They’re going to make tough shots. Even though it may seem like we had it going and got stops, they’re a tough team. They’re going to make tough buckets and they’ve got tough players. That’s just a credit to them.”

Tyger Campbell silenced the season-best CU Events Center crowd of 8,774 with a three-pointer immediately following Walker’s late-game dunk, and a missed layup by Simpson with 26 seconds to play forced the Buffaloes to foul away on the Bruins.

In dire need of some slip-ups at the charity stripe by UCLA, the Bruins disappointed Colorado in that regard, sinking all six of their free throw attempts in the final 16 seconds of play en route to a 71-65 victory.

In CU’s last game, a 61-58 loss to No. 16 USC Thursday, the team committed a costly 16 turnovers, contributing considerably to the loss.

Saturday proved to be of a similarly frustrating nature with respect to turnovers: CU committed 21 in total, 14 of which came in the first half, with UCLA turning them into 20 points.

“We shot ourselves in the foot for the second game in a row with our turnovers,” Tad Boyle said. “I didn’t think it’d get worse than 16 and here we are tonight at 21. But I’ve got to tip my cap to our guys — they battled back in that second half. This team’s got fight, it’s got resilience (and) its got heart.”

Walker led the Buffs with 19 points on 6-of-13 shooting, while Evan Battey went 5-of-6 from the floor with 15 points.

Johnny Juzang did the most damage for UCLA; he shot 9-of-18 on the night and led all game participants with 23 points.

Thanks to fruitless early possessions exacerbated by multiple turnovers, Colorado found itself in a 12-2 hole leading into the first media timeout of the opening half.

The Buffs rebounded, however, and a Walker dunk with 12:22 before halftime made the score 17-14, still in favor of the Bruins.

With 8:06 left in the first half, Keeshawn Barthelemy drained a three-pointer, getting CU within one point, with UCLA clinging to a 21-20 lead.

From there, Colorado suffered a crippling drought of 7:27 between field goals; it was another three-pointer by Barthelemy with just 39 seconds left in the half that came as the Buffs’ next made shot from the floor.

In the meantime, the Bruins closed out the half in dominating fashion, going on a 20-5 run before the buzzer sounded.

By halftime, UCLA held a 43-28 lead.

The Bruins went up by as much as 17 early into the second half and by around the midway point, were still boasting a lead of double digits.

Shortly thereafter, Tristan da Silva, whose six turnovers on the night led the Buffs, hit back-to-back second chance baskets, getting CU within six points of the Bruins.

He finished the game with 10 points on 4-of-9 shooting.

While Barthelemy provided something of an offensive kickstart for the Buffaloes in the first half, he notably played zero minutes beyond the 15:48 mark of the second half.

From that point on, Simpson ran point. He tied for the team lead in assists (5), rebounds (7) and contributed 10 points.

With exactly five minutes to play, Battey drilled a three-pointer, further breathing life into Colorado’s comeback attempt.

At that point, UCLA led by just three, 55-52.

But in what would prove to be a frustrating theme down the stretch, the Bruins answered immediately, with Jaime Jaquez making a three-pointer of his own.

With under three minutes to go, Juzang hit back-to-back jumpers that gave UCLA a bit of breathing room, turning three-point leads into five-point leads.

Campbell’s three-pointer directly following a big dunk by Walker, in which CU crept to within a point of the Bruins, was the one shot Boyle thought went a bit too uncontested.

But he and Walker both commented after the game that generally speaking, Colorado’s defense was sound late in the game.

“Defensively, if we’re shaking hands with them and we play great defense and they make shots over our hands, hey, tip your cap to them,” Boyle said. “I just want contested jump shots. We had that for the most part…As long as we are playing good, solid, fundamental defense and not giving up layups, I can live with it. I think that was the case down the stretch.”

After falling to ranked teams in two straight contests, there will be little time for any post-loss hangover for the Buffaloes, who now prepare to embark on a three-game road trip beginning with Tuesday night’s game in Eugene against what will almost certainly be a ranked Oregon Ducks squad.

Oregon, having managed to defeat both UCLA and USC in the last 10 days, plays Washington Sunday before the newest AP Top 25 poll comes out Monday.

Tuesday’s game is the long-awaited rescheduling of the original Dec. 30 meeting between the two teams that has been postponed twice due to COVID-19 protocols.

From there, CU stays in the Pacific Northwest with games against UW on Jan. 27 and Washington State Jan. 30.

“Tonight, in the second half, I felt like we got better against a really good UCLA team,” Boyle said. “We got better. We got better from the USC game — we were better in the second half than we were in the first half. We have to build on that. We can’t take one step forward and two steps back when we go to Oregon.”