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It’s hard to win basketball games with 22 turnovers...
Colorado had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad game against the Knights in Orlando.
The Buff headed to Central Florida to take on the UCF Knights, badly in need of a bounce-back win after being run out of the gym against Arizona State last Saturday. Coincidentally, the Knights found themselves in the same boat after suffering a 51-point loss to the Kansas Jayhawks on Sunday.
Luckily for Colorado, the same UCF we saw against Kansas showed up in Orlando to start the contest. The Knights bricked all their first 10 shots of the game, going 0-6 on three-pointers in that span. UCF’s cold streak allowed the Buffs to build a 6-0 lead to open the game.
Not-so-luckily, UCF’s Jordan Ivy-Curry had something to say about Colorado building a quick lead. Ivy-Curry led the Knights on a 7-0 run, scoring all seven of those points, putting UCF on top of the Buffs 7-6. The Knights parlayed that spark from Ivy-Curry into a 15-5 run, finding their groove and building some momentum.
Led by Julian Hammond running point, Colorado would squash UCF’s momentum and get their offense up and running again. A long three and floater from Hammond would cut the Buffs back on top.
The Buffs and Knights would trade blows, with UCF’s Keyshawn Hall and Benny Williams drilling threes, countered by a big three from CU’s Andrej Jakimovski and four freebies made by Assane Diop. Diop specifically was willing to do the dirty work for the Buffs in the low post, drawing four shooting fouls and hitting 7 of his 8 FTs in the first half.
Fouls would play a huge role in the first half, with the refs calling 22 total fouls in the first half alone. Colorado would take 18 FTs and UCF would take 12, despite having 10 more attempts from the field.
Both teams would go toe-to-toe for the remaining five minutes of the first half, with Colorado beginning to seize control of the game’s flow and taking the crowd out of it. Just when it felt like the Knights were on the rope, UCF would draw pivotal fouls and hit their free throws to keep the game within reach.
Headed into the half, Colorado went to the locker rooms up 37-34 on UCF, with Julian Hammond leading with 10 points.
The Buffs returned from the break ready to hoop, hitting their first six shots from the field and going on a 9-3 run, building up a nine-point lead. After a three-point shooting slump against Iowa State and Arizona State, Andrej Jakimovski bounced back in a big way against UCF, drilling two three-pointers in the first four minutes of the second half, with an additional layup for good measure.
Colorado continued rolling well into the second half, shooting 8-12 from on FG and a perfect 3-3 on threes to start the period. With a 10-point lead and a chance to put the game in the bag, disaster struck.
The turnover bug struck at the worst time. CU turned the ball over eight times in five minutes, allowing UCF to cut their lead to only three points. A flagrant foul by Assane Diop allowed UCF to tie the game and take a 60-58 lead after a Keyshawn Hall layup.
What followed was a trading of clutch buckets from both teams. A long three from Hammond put the Buffs back on top, but UCF’s Deebo Coleman and Darius Johnson responded with three-pointers of their own to put the Knights on top 71-67.
When all seemed lost, Julian Hammond swooped in once again to save the day. Hammond drew two shooting fouls on back-to-back possessions and hit four of his freebies, following that up by drawing another shooting foul, hitting the floater regardless, and swishing the and-one. Hammond’s heroics put CU up 74-71 with three minutes to play.
On the verge of winning, Colorado was blanked. Poor shot selection, three fouls, and a turnover allowed UCF to claw all the back and take a one-point lead with :22 seconds left to play.
With only four seconds separating the shot and game clock, all Colorado had to do was hit one bucket to win the game. Instead, the Buffs inbounded the ball after a timeout and immediately looked confused. Julian Hammond was forced to heave up a desperation three-pointer that would fall multiple feet short of the basket.
Defeat seemed almost certain for the Buffs, but the refs had one final gift for them. UCF took their time inbounding the ball on the baseline after Hammond’s airball, getting knocked with a five-second violation and giving the Buffs the ball back.
With only six seconds on the clock this time, the ball found Elijah Malone directly under the hoop with a clear lane to make the bucket. Instead, Malone got stuffed (and got hit pretty hard when putting up the shot) as the clock hit zero. No foul was called.
It’s hard to win basketball games when you turn the ball over 22 times and foul the other team an additional 22 times, which CU did in Orlando. Julian Hammond did his best to keep his Buffs in this game, but untilmately came up short. Colorado fell by a final score of 75-74.
It wasn’t all bad news, as Hammond got the bounce-back game he so badly needed. After being blanked in Tempe on Saturday, Hammond led the game in scoring with 26 points (8-14 FG), with five boards and assists each. Andrej Jakivoski also showed out, putting up 16 points of his own.
After falling to 0-3 in Big 12 play, the Buffs will head back to Boulder for a two-game homestand. They’ll return to action next when the #21 ranked West Virginia Mountaineers take the floor at the CU Event Center this Sunday.
by RylandScholes
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