The Colorado Buffaloes men’s basketball team (9-12, 0-10 Big 12) fell to the TCU Horned Frogs (11-10, 4-6 Big 12) 68-57 in Fort Worth, Texas, on Sunday.
Sunday’s loss marked the 10th straight to open conference play, which is Colorado’s worst conference start since the 1985-86 season. The Buffs finished 0-14 and last in the Big 8 that season.
The story of the game, once again, was 19 turnovers by the Buffs, resulting in 28 points for the Horned Frogs. Colorado beat itself all game, throwing multiple cross-court heaves out of bounds and risky passes into traffic. Holding onto the ball has been a struggle for Colorado all season, as the Buffs lead the Big 12 in turnovers with 15 per game.
“The unfortunate thing is, we have 19 turnovers,” CU head coach Tad Boyle said after the loss. “It's an 11-point game, we lose the turnover differential by 20. That's pretty much it. And it's been that way, pretty much since 2025 started."
Colorado dominated the opening minutes of the first half, scoring the first eight points of the game on the back of its defense and fast-break offense. Graduate Trevor Baskin accounted for two back-to-back buckets within 25 seconds of game time. The Horned Frogs quickly countered with a 7-0 run of their own to cut the lead to 13-12.
Minutes later, TCU went on a 10-0 run and claimed its first lead of the game at 26-24 with four minutes left in the first half. Meanwhile, the black and gold were in the midst of a five-minute-long scoring drought, shooting 0-for-5 from the field in that time.
The Buffs controlled the glass in the first as they out-rebounded the Horned Frogs 19-9. Colorado also shot 45% from the field compared to TCU’s 42% and assisted on all 10 of its field goals.
Regardless of these statistics being in the Buffs’ favor, the purple and white led at half 34-27 because of CU’s turnover problem. TCU forced Colorado into 10 turnovers in the first 20 minutes, leading to 14 points, while only surrendering two turnovers on the other end.
After the half, the Buffs ran out of the locker room with one thing on their minds. The paint.
The herd scored eight points off four layups to begin the second half. Andrej Jakimovski’s off-ball movement and driving ability were responsible for two of those layups.
Out of 30 second-half points, 18 of those came from the paint for Colorado, compared to just eight in the first half, but the change in strategy was not enough to combat the sloppy play.
The black and gold cut the Horned Frogs’ lead to within five multiple times in the second half. However, the Buffs never regained the lead since they lost it in the earlier first.
TCU resisted Colorado’s late push and went on a 12-0 run, increasing its lead to 17 with four minutes left. Freshman forward David Punch scored eight points on that run, helping close the door on the Buffs.
Punch led TCU in second-half points with 14, nine more than any other player.
Bangot Dak was a force crashing the boards, grabbing 35% of the team’s total rebounds (12). Dak also swatted three shots and was one point shy of a double-double.
Jakimovski led the herd in points with 13 and was second on the team in rebounds with four.
The black and gold have four games to avoid tying the worst conference start in school history. Unfortunately for the Buffs, two of those games are against No. 6 Houston and No. 11 Kansas, two of the top powerhouses in the conference.
Colorado will travel to Salt Lake City to take on the Utah Utes (12-9, 4-6 Big 12) on Wednesday at 7 p.m. MT (ESPN+).
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