Still playing without two of its top three scorers, Colorado battled hard Sunday for a 74-67 win over Washington State to move to 2-0 in Pac-12 play.
“Another hard-fought league win,” head coach Tad Boyle said postgame. “That was not easy for us. … I like their team a lot. I think they’ve got good personnel, I think (head coach Kyle Smith) has done a good job of kind of restocking the cupboard because I know they lost a lot of guys last year. They run good stuff, he’s a good coach. So, quality win against a quality team.”
KJ Simpson led the way with a career-high 34 points, pouring in 20 of them after halftime. Every time the Cougars made a run to battle back into the game, there was Simpson with a huge bucket or a pair of free throws to keep his team in front. The junior point guard set career highs in both free throws made (13) and attempted (14) on Sunday, and shot above 50% from the field for the 10th time in 13 games.
“It’s funny, I talked to KJ. Not necessarily this weekend but before the season, early in the season, about the fact that it’s gonna be really important for him to recognize, night to night, game to game, what he has to do to help this team win,” Boyle said. “There’s certain nights where it might be getting right to 10 to 12 assists and being a great distributor. There might be nights, Friday he had 10 defensive rebounds. He helped us win that game by defensive rebounding.
“And there’s other nights where KJ’s gonna have to score the ball for us, because he can really score. We love aggressive, scoring point guards in our system. Tonight, we needed him to score, his team needed him to score, and he went out and got 34. The kid’s special, man. He’s coachable, he’s a great teammate, he’s unselfish, I don’t know what else to say about him. He’s solidified himself, I think as we go forward, as one of the great point guards in Colorado basketball history.”
Early on, Sunday’s contest looked like it was going to be all Buffs. Colorado jumped out in front right from the get-go. Boyle’s group quickly gained a 9-2 lead and were rock solid on both ends of the floor for much of the first half. When Washington State answered with a run to cut the lead to 4, catapulted by a couple of threes from Andrej Jakimovski, Simpson quickly answered with five straight points. That triggered a 10-4 run to end the half, putting Colorado ahead by 10 at the break, 39-29.
But the Cougars weren’t done fighting. A 9-2 run early in the second half cut the lead back to 5 once again, and would eventually get it to just 2 with just over 12 minutes remaining. That was the closest the Cougars had been since the opening minutes, but Simpson quickly answered with his only three of the night.
Washington State continued to hang around for a long stretch, but the Buffs had a few more runs in them. First, it was a quick 6-0 spurt, spurred by a Simpson floater and a beautiful pocket pass assist to Eddie Lampkin Jr. for an and-one, putting the Buffs up 64-56. Then, after the Cougars once again cut the lead down to one, the Buffs immediately responded with a 9-0 run to put the game out of reach late. Simpson scored 6 of those 9, and was helped by a huge J’Vonne Hadley 3-pointer in the final minute.
In addition to Simpson’s career performance, Hadley scored 12 points and hit a pair of threes for the first time as a Buff. Lampkin Jr. had 10 points and six rebounds, but the Buffs outscored Wazzu by 24 points in his 30 minutes.
For Washington State, Jakimovski led the way with 19 points, and leading scorer Isaac Jones scored 16 points on 7-for-7 shooting, and added eight rebounds.
Simpson’s day stands alone in recent Colorado basketball history. His 34 points were the most by a Buffs player since Derrick White against Arizona State in 2017, and the most by a Buff at home since Alec Burks had 36 against Missouri in 2011.
“I think I’m just being a little smarter with my shot selection,” Simpson said. “Coach talked about that a lot last year, and just understanding to pick and choose your spots. I missed a lot of easy ones today, could’ve took care of the ball today a lot better, but credit to my teammates. They found me early, I really was just back cutting, since they were top-locking me, and everybody out there was finding me on those cuts and that’s how I was able to score the ball so easily.”
The Buffs will now take the road for a key early tilt with No. 4 Arizona on Thursday night in Tucson. The Wildcats will be coming off a loss after falling to Stanford on Sunday. Colorado is still awaiting news on the status of Tristan da Silva (ankle) and Cody Williams (wrist), and Boyle said postgame that he was unsure if either would be able to go next week. Tipoff against the Wildcats will be at 7:30 p.m. MST.
