LAS VEGAS – Winning the final Pac-12 Championship would’ve been the perfect ending to the Colorado Buffaloes’ tenure in the dying “Conference of Champions.” After losing to the Oregon Ducks on Saturday night, the Buffs leave the conference with just one title, coming from their first year in the Pac-12.
“To lose the championship, it stings,” KJ Simpson said. “But we believe we've got more basketball left. Obviously, like I said, everyone's disappointed, but we can't dwell and we can't sit and mope around about this one loss.”
The loss signals the end of an eight-game winning streak that kept Colorado’s March Madness chances alive, a heater that most likely cemented their spot in the Big Dance, though it will be decided on Sunday.
“I'll lose with these guys every day of the week,” Colorado head coach Tad Boyle said during an emotional press conference. “I believe in them. A hundred percent. I believe in that team in that locker room, but they deserve to move on. We'll see if it happens tomorrow. If it does, it does. If it doesn't, we'll move on as well. But this team, to me, is worthy.”
For Oregon, the storybook finish was well in place. The 75-68 win punched an unlikely ticket to the NCAA Tournament. The Ducks’ victory was also their first of the season against the Buffs in three matchups.
The energy of the T-Mobile Arena was felt from before the contest, and it showed too. While both teams came out of the gates ready to play, the nerves saw the Ducks in early foul trouble with the Buffs experiencing the turnover issues that have plagued them all year.
With the Ducks leading 9-7, Oregon’s N’Faly Dante picked up his second foul just six minutes into the contest. Similarly to their win over Arizona, they went down early with Dante out of the game as the Buffs went on a 13-4 run, jumpstarted by a KJ Simpson triple.
The Buffs’ star point guard was their leading scorer on the night, finishing with 23 points (6-of-12 FG, 3-of-8 3PT, 8-of-8 FT).
When Dante returned almost seven minutes after his departure, the reminiscence of the Arizona game continued as the Ducks got back into the contest. Dante began his overwhelming prowess earning him the Pac-12 Tournament’s Most Outstanding Player award. He scored nine points on a perfect 4-of-4 from the field, grabbing three rebounds, and an assist in the first half while avoiding picking up any more fouls before the break.
Slowly but surely climbing back into the contest, they took the lead with under two minutes left in the half on a Jadrian Tracey 3-pointer. The shot was one of just two made 3s by the Ducks on the night (on 19 attempts).
The Ducks, who put the Buffs in the bonus before the 10-minute mark of the first, finished the half with just seven fouls and 16 across the entire night. As they cleaned up their early glaring issue, the Buffs continued theirs, going into the half with eight turnovers to Oregon’s two.
Down 33-30 at the half, the Buffs fired back, tying the contest at 39 apiece just three minutes in.
A Jackson Shelstad jumper separated the Ducks from the Buffs once more, though, giving them the lead until the final five minutes. The Ducks’ standout freshman finished with the second-most points on the team, scoring 17 on 4-of-12 shooting (1-of-4 3PT, 8-of-10 FT) alongside five rebounds, an assist, and zero turnovers.
While Oregon kept themselves at a slight distance, they saw the Colorado turnover woes continue, scoring 23 points off the 13 turnovers they forced. Offensively, they only turned the ball over three times, good for their second-lowest turnover count of the season and allowing the Buffs to zero points off the three mishaps.
Colorado also saw the foul tides flip, with Eddie Lampkin Jr. whistled for his third foul early in the second half. This allowed Dante to get going, scoring 16 of his game-high 25 points on a perfect 12-of-12 from the field.
As a team, the Buffs out-fouled the Ducks by four.
Still, the Buffs fought. Luke O’Brien, who hit a clutch basket against Washington State just a day prior, pushed Colorado into the lead with his third triple of the evening with just under five minutes to play for some hardware. O’Brien finished with 11 points (3-of-9 FG, 3-of-6 3PT, 2-2 FT), four boards, and an assist.
The Ducks, as they had all night, responded with five straight points to go up four with a few minutes left to play. The final bucket of the run was a smooth reverse layup from Tracey, who scored one of his three baskets on the night in arguably the most clutch spot.
“We got some good looks,” Boyle said about the final minutes of the game. “The looks we got we didn't convert. Like you said, we had some turnovers there. You can't turn the ball over, especially when your opponent is not turning it over.”
Lampkin halted the run with a hook shot, but the beast of Dante was ready to win his squad a title.
The Ducks’ big man, who hadn’t missed a field goal since playing the Buffs in Boulder, immediately slammed home a two-hand jam to counter Lampkin’s bucket. After another stop, he gobbled up an offensive rebound before putting it through the orange cylinder for his 24th and 25th points.
Up 71-64 with 53 seconds to go following another 5-0 run, the deficit was too much to overcome for the Buffs.
The cherry on top of the sad departure from the conference ended with a powerful swat of a Simpson 3-pointer by Dante, who saved the ball to Shelstad and extended the lead once more.
“I thought N'Faly Dante, he was the difference in the game,” Boyle said. “He's gone – even when we played him at Eugene he was 10-for-10 from the field. He was 12-for-12 tonight. By my math, that's 22-for-22. And we were trying to double him. He scored out of double teams. He played extremely well. He changed shots at the rim, defensively. Oregon played better than us tonight. They deserved to win. We didn't.”
Simpson, who had 16 of his 23 points in the second half, couldn’t play superhero long enough, having the block cap off a half that featured four turnovers by the usually calm point guard.
The Buffs failed to have impactful performances from Simpson’s supporting cast as Tristan da Silva, J’Vonne Hadley, and Lampkin all finished with single-digit point totals, shooting a combined 7-of-18 from the field.
While Oregon didn’t see the scoring burst expected from Jermaine Cousinard, only scoring 14 points on a measly 5-of-17 shooting from the field (0-of-5 3PT, 4-of-5 FT), he notched a game-high eight assists in the win.
As a whole, the Buffs outshot the Ducks from deep, and the charity stripe while also outrebounding them 33-30. However, the turnovers and foul issues stood in the way of leaving Vegas and the Pac-12 with some hardware.
Now, the Buffs await Selection Sunday, seeing where they could (or could not) end up in March Madness. The Ducks, on the other hand, will enjoy the spot they saved for themselves with the win.
“Obviously it hurts,” da Silva said. “Going through this twice in four years, as KJ and Coach said, we have a lot of basketball ahead of us, too. I've got to deal with this one. But I've got to make sure I look ahead. Don't let this one linger around.”
Cover photo by Roberto Patrick Gerra/Sko Buffs Sports
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