Bangot Dak was part of a Colorado team that conjured some March magic. He was part of another that finished last in the Big 12 yet still managed to impress down the stretch.
Does the CU men’s basketball team have the mettle to once again play its best during college basketball’s premier month? The Buffaloes didn’t stir confidence on that front at No. 5 Houston on Saturday, suffering a 102-62 defeat in which head coach Tad Boyle was ejected late in the first half.
It wasn’t the first time the Buffs have been routed on the road, as they’ve lost their past five road games by an average of 25.4 points, a run that includes a four-point overtime loss at Brigham Young.
Yet after each of those routs, the Buffs responded. They’ll have another chance to do so in the final regular season road game Tuesday night at Utah (7 p.m. MT, ESPN+).
“I feel like we all go away from what kind of is working, in moments,” Dak said. “We have to go back and look at things we did well and try to build on that. How fast we share the ball together, how easy the looks are for each other. We just have to keep doing that, and don’t get tired of doing the right thing over and over.
“We compete every time, I feel like. It’s just those stretches the other team goes on a run, we’ve got to shorten those. The good teams, they always find a way to shorten up those runs other teams go on.”
Dak was a true freshman two seasons ago when the Buffs made a late surge into the postseason, winning the final six games of the regular season, advancing to the Pac-12 title game, and then winning games in the NCAA Tournament First Four and first round.
Last year, the Buffs went 3-17 while finishing last in the Big 12, but they still went 5-5 from the end of the regular season through the conference tournament, where they won a pair of games as the 16th seed.
The Buffs looked far removed from a team ready to make a March run at Houston, where they were dominated in all facets. But CU has responded to blowout losses before.
After losing by 30 points at Iowa State on Jan. 29, the Buffs returned home to defeat TCU, which has won six of seven games since. After a 19-point loss at Baylor on Feb. 4, CU posted a home win against Arizona State. And after losing by 34 points at Texas Tech on Feb. 11, the Buffs took BYU to overtime on the road three days later and returned home to record wins against Oklahoma State and Kansas State.
Tuesday’s matchup at Utah, which is tied for last in the Big 12, presents a similar opportunity, although CU has lost 17 of 18 true road games since the start of the 2024-25 season. The Buffs have struggled on 3-pointers on the road, posting a .293 mark in Big 12 road games, but they haven’t stopped anyone, either.
“We didn’t do a very good job on the personnel in the scouting report (at Houston),” Boyle said. “Again, they’re good players. It’s not like Kingston Flemings can’t go left. But he’s really, really good going right. It’s not like (Milos) Uzan can’t go right. But he’s really, really good going left. And we let Flemings go right a lot. We let Uzan go left a lot.”
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