After another loss, Colorado’s 12th in a row in Big 12 play, Houston head coach Kelvin Sampson summed it up best.
“They’re right there.”
Colorado put forth one of its best showings of this Big 12 season on Saturday, but great effort isn’t enough against the No. 5-ranked team in the country. The Buffs were able to keep it close for most of the afternoon, but Houston pulled away in the final few minutes to come away with a hard-fought 69-59 victory at the CU Events Center.
The first few minutes of the game looked more like what many would have expected when they saw this matchup on the schedule. Houston started the game with two second-chance buckets and a steal that led to an easy hoop and a 9-0 lead, forcing Tad Boyle to call a timeout before the Buffs had even scored.
“Houston is the gold standard when it comes to defense and rebounding,” Boyle said after the game. “That’s who we aspire to be, but that’s who they are.”
After the Cougars made it a 14-3 lead with just under 13 minutes to go in the first half, the Buffs finally stood up and made their run. Three consecutive 3s by Javon Ruffin, RJ Smith and Felix Kossaras made up the meat of an 11-0 run that Colorado used to tie the game at 14, forcing a Houston timeout.
Sampson’s club quickly settled back in after the reset and pulled in front by seven on the back of a pair of J’Wan Roberts buckets, but the Buffs stayed within arm’s length with their defense as the half wound down. The Cougars were held without a field goal over the final four minutes as Colorado halved the deficit with scores by Smith and Assane Diop to make it 31-27 Houston at the break.
Coming out of the break, Hammond took it upon himself to try and secure a monumental upset. The senior guard drilled three 3-pointers, all of them off the dribble and from well beyond the arc, to cut the Houston lead to just three at 39-36 with just under 15 minutes to go. When the Cougars leaned on Roberts to stretch the lead out again, Hammond splashed his fourth 3 of the half and Bangot Dak followed with one of his own to get the Buffs back within a possession at the 8-minute mark.
“Julian Hammond. Boy, he played good today. He was hitting some howitzers,” Sampson said postgame. “I didn’t know whether to go out there and high-five him or get on my kids.”
The Buffs continued to chip away at the Houston lead at the free throw line over the next five minutes, but the Cougars continued to stay in front on the back of reserve guard Terrance Arceneaux, who got the start in place of the injured Emmanuel Sharp.
The Buffs were seemingly on the very edge of flipping the momentum for most of the second half up until the final minutes. One of the biggest roars from the CU Events Center crowd all afternoon came just inside the four-minute mark when freshman Sebastian Rancik slashed through the lane and threw down a thunderous dunk to cut the Houston lead to 60-56, and it felt like the Buffs may have enough to get in the win column.
However, like most top teams do, Houston came out of the ensuing media timeout and put an end to all of the hoopla. Roberts scored five quick points and Milos Uzan found a cutting Mylik Wilson for an alley-oop dunk, punctuating a 7-0 run that put the Cougars up double digits and put an end to Colorado’s upset hopes.
“We didn’t get stops the other night against Utah from the 4-minute media timeout to the end of the game, and tonight we didn’t do it either,” Boyle said. “Those are the differences in the game.”
Hammond finished the game as the only Buff in double figures with 22 points on 7-for-13 shooting and 5-for-7 from 3. He knocked down all four of his 3s in the second half and gave the Buffs a chance to finally get that elusive conference win that they have been chasing.
“I feel like I’ve been struggling a little bit as of late, so just getting in the gym all week and getting up shots so that in the game I can feel a good rhythm,” Hammond said. “I got a couple of good looks and after that I felt pretty good.”
Houston’s physicality made the difference in this one. Sampson’s squad outscored the Buffs 42-20 in the paint, collected 15 offensive rebounds that turned into 18 second-chance points, and ended up with a plus-12 overall margin on the glass. The Buffs only turned the ball over 12 times and shot 5-for-8 from 3 in the second half, but Houston’s dominance on the interior was too much to overcome.
Roberts was also the difference in the game down the stretch. He finished with 20 points on 9-for-11 shooting and came up with clutch bucket after clutch bucket down the stretch. Colorado couldn’t keep him from getting to his left hand, and he finished over, around and through defenders at every opportunity.
“J’Wan Roberts made plays down the stretch. He really did,” Boyle said. “Made some tough shots when the defense was there, but that’s what really, really good players do. To me, he’s an all-conference player and he played like it down the stretch.”
Colorado’s search for a conference win isn’t getting any easier any time soon. Boyle and company will head to the legendary Allen Fieldhouse for a date with No. 16 Kansas on Tuesday night before returning home to play UCF on Saturday.
