Kansas holds of CU Buffs upset bid – The Denver Post

Fast break

Why the Buffs lost: CU finished 5-for-24 on 3-pointers, committed 14 turnovers, and allowed Kansas to finish with a .491 mark from the field.

Three stars

1. KU’s Hunter Dickinson. The All-American candidate posted his 12th double-double of the season and the 60th of his career, finishing with a KU career-high 32 points along with 13 rebounds.

2. CU’s Bangot Dak. The sophomore forward put on a dunking exhibition, going 7-for-10 from the field with 16 points and five rebounds.

3. KU’s KJ Adams. Supported Dickinson by going 7-for-12 with 15 points.

Up next: The Buffs will be idle until Sunday, when they visit Kansas State (2 p.m. MT, ESPN+).

The Colorado men’s basketball team deserves credit for this much. In a season that has included a historic losing streak and a swift exit from the competition for a postseason berth, the Buffaloes have refused to pack it in.

Yet that perseverance wasn’t nearly enough to topple Kansas.

The Buffaloes hung tough against Kansas but couldn’t get over the top, as the Jayhawks escaped CU’s upset bid to hand the Buffs a 71-64 defeat on Monday night at the CU Events Center.

The Buffs had no answer for Kansas big man Hunter Dickinson, who finished with 32 points and 13 rebounds. It was the highest scoring total for a CU opponent this season while tying the second-highest rebounding mark for a CU foe.

“Our guys battled tonight. There’s no doubt about it,” CU head coach Tad Boyle said. “We’ve got to do more than one thing well on any given night. That’s kind of been the story of our year. Against Baylor we guarded, didn’t rebound very well, got to the free throw line. Tonight, we rebounded well, didn’t guard very well, didn’t get to the free throw line. Hunter Dickinson’s a beast down there. Didn’t think we handled him very well.

“I don’t fault our effort. I don’t fault our toughness. We just have to be more consistent in various parts of the game.”

The Buffs outrebounded KU 46-31 and grabbed a season-high 18 offensive rebounds, turning those extra opportunities into a 16-1 advantage on second-chance points. But offensively, the Buffs couldn’t solve one of the top defenses in the Big 12. And defensively, CU had no answer for Kansas’ frontcourt duo of Dickinson and KJ Adams, who went a combined 20-for-30 from the field.

“It was a very good win against a tough opponent on the road,” Dickinson said. “My teammates really found me in good positions. My teammates did a really good job of finding me good to the basket, and I think I did a good job of staying close to the basket.”

Kansas jumped to a 10-point lead early, but CU kept chipping away and went into halftime trailing 37-32. The Buffs scored the first five points of the second half to pull even and briefly took their only lead of the game at 39-38 on a driving bucket by Julian Hammond III.