Colorado Big 12 Tournament run unlike anything in college basketball history
Today at 08:26 PM
Colorado basketball entered the Big 12 tournament as the No. 16 seed, with many expecting an early exit. The Buffaloes are threatening history instead.
Colorado pulled a new stunner on Wednesday. The Buffs knocked off the conference’s No. 8 seed West Virginia 67-60 inside the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City. The Buffaloes entered as a 5.5-point underdog. Now the Buffs are stampeding to college basketball history, per Dennis Dodd of CBS Sports.
“Possible history here at Big 12 tournament. For the moment Colorado basketball is believed to be the first men’s team — at least in Power 6 — to win two games as a No. 16 seed in a conference tournament,” Dodd posted on X.
The national columnist added two factors that tie into the history component for CU: There hasn’t been many 16-team conferences especially in tournaments ahead of March Madness, plus CU being a last-seeded team pulling off this feat.
How Colorado is pulling off historic Big 12 tournament run
Colorado one week ago took a lopsided loss to No. 9 Texas Tech 91-75 in its last road game. That defeat also became the Buffs’ third consecutive loss.
But CU is on a three-game roll since then — including becoming the surprise of Kansas City. Colorado rolled to a 76-56 rout of TCU in Boulder to close out the regular season. Now they’ve carried the momentum into the tourney.
The Buffaloes entered the tournament a 1.5-point underdog this time. Colorado then endured a far closer rematch against the Horned Frogs. The Buffaloes even briefly lost a nine-point lead in the first half of the Tuesday contest. But CU expanded its lead to 13 in the second half through Andrej Jakimovski getting hot behind the arc with nine early second half points. RJ Smith added two threes and the Buffs held on for the 69-67 win.
But on Wednesday, CU erased its own nine-point deficit against the Mountaineers with 10:37 left. Elijah Malone sparked the rally with a layup and jumper, then Smith nailed a deep three at the 6:03 mark to give CU the lead for good.
Colorado is wearing the Cinderella slipper in the Big 12 tourney. Now they get a chance to really shake up the tournament picture if they knock off the top-seeded Houston Cougars Thursday.
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