Slow first half dooms Arizona Basketball in loss to Colorado

BOULDER, CO – A slow first half dooms Arizona Basketball (13-6, 7-6), as the Wildcats fell to Colorado (14-5, 8-4) by an 82-79 final. 

A poor showing against Utah didn’t seem to help the Wildcats to get focused from the start against Colorado, as Arizona Basketball was once again plagued by a slow start, ultimately losing 82-79 to the Buffaloes.

As a team, the offense looked much better on Saturday evening, shooting 27-55 (49 percent) from the field and 7-17 from three (41 percent). Even Ben Mathurin scored 22 points, Azoulas Tubelis added 18 points, and James Akinjo had 16, but it wasn’t enough for the Wildcats.

Another sluggish first half dooms Arizona Basketball

Arizona Wildcats

Falling behind by as many as 17 in the first half, it took nearly nine minutes for the Wildcats to finally make a field, a second-chance put back by Jordan Brown that made it 19-4 Colorado.

Needing some kind of spark, the Wildcats would begin to rally a little bit in this one, cutting into Colorado’s lead to make this game more respectable. Arizona would do so too, as they finished the half outscoring Colorado 30-22 after falling behind 19-2 early on.

However, after trailing by only six, Colorado’s Eli Parquet would hit a three-pointer from long distance as time expired to put the Buffaloes by up nine and stealing some momentum.

A strong second half would give Arizona Basketball a chance to pull off the comeback victory

Finally showing up to play in the second half, the Wildcats would rally against Colorado cutting the Buffaloes’ lead to just two points before a Tubelis bucket in the paint with 10:48 to play put the Wildcats up 53-52.

Playing mostly back and forth for the rest of the half, Arizona would go up by as many as four at 74-70 when Mathurin would hit another three in the game with 3:21 to play. Unfortunately, Colorado would not go away.

Getting timely buckets and capitalizing on Arizona’s mistakes, Colorado would pull back ahead at 78-76 with 32 seconds to play.

Christian Koloko would hit a clutch dunk to make it 78-78 just a few moments later, but as the Buffaloes had the ball with the shot clock off, these turned into a free throw shooting affair in the waning moments, allowing Colorado to seal the win.

With the loss, Arizona falls to 13-6 (7-6), now having lost three of their last four games and the Oregon schools looming.

Listen to coach Sean Miller following the teams’ loss:

At Zona Zealots we’re disappointed in the teams’ loss and just hope the Wildcats can come back with better results against the Oregon schools. As always, Bear Down, Arizona!