Brayden Burries has career-high 31 in Arizona's win at Colorado
· Yahoo Sports
BOULDER, Colo. — Even in the thin air of the mile-high CU Events Center, Brayden Burries and the Arizona Wildcats still know how to wear people down.
Trailing by up to 11 points in the first half and by two at halftime, the second-ranked Arizona men's basketball team pulled out an 89-79 win by outracing and overpowering Colorado in the second half inside while also sprinkling in 4 of 5 3-pointers after halftime.
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The win broke Arizona’s program record for most regular-season victories, leaving the Wildcats at 29-2 overall and 16-2 in the Big 12 entering the conference tournament, while Colorado dropped to 17-14 and 7-11.
"I'm not saying it's the most talented team that they've ever had, but I think it might be the best team they've ever had," Colorado coach Tad Boyle said of Arizona. "Their identity, and it showed in the second half how they came in and just went right inside. Right inside. They knew where their advantage was, they took advantage of that, and we didn't have a lot of answers."
Arizona shot 69.2% in the second half to finish shooting 55.2% overall and outscored the Buffaloes in the paint, 52-24.
Forward Koa Peat led UA offensively in the first half, when he scored 19 of his 25 points, while Burries had 22 of his season-high 31 points to lead Arizona’s second-half comeback.
"You don't really have to challenge him," UA coach Tommy Lloyd said of Burries, who was 2 for 7 from the field in the first half. "He's a competitor. He kind of figured it out on his own and got himself going a little bit."
Though they never took a lead in the first half, Arizona tied the game at 46 less than three minutes into the second half when Burries hit what was the Wildcats’ first 3-pointer of the game. The Wildcats, who had missed all six 3s it took before halftime, received another 3 in the right corner from Dwayne Aristode that later gave them a 69-64 lead with 8:44 left.
From there, Tobe Awaka scored inside on two straight UA possessions to make it a 7-0 run for the Wildcats, and UA took a 73-64 lead into a timeout with seven minutes left.
With 4:39 left, Arizona successfully challenged an out-of-bounds call against Jaden Bradley, though Burries wound up tossing ball out of bounds. Burries made up for it, however, by stepping in front of a pass from Colorado’s Bangot Dak and racing in for a layup that gave UA a 78-70 lead.
Arizona led by at least six points the rest of the way while Burries hit 3 of 4 free throws and drove in for a layup in the final minute to seal it for the Wildcats.
But before Burries brought his heroics, Peat was the one who kept the Wildcats alive in the first half, after which the Wildcats still trailed Colorado 38-36 at halftime.
Colorado shot only 34.4% overall in the first half but outrebounded the Wildcats 22-18 and hit 6 of 15 3-pointers while UA missed all six 3s it attempted. Colorado also hit all 10 free throws it took while Arizona was 8 of 10 from the line.
While Colorado led almost throughout the first half, Buffaloes fans didn't start to drown out the 2,000 or so Arizona fans on hand with four minutes left in the first half, when CU went on an 8-0 run that was capped by heroics from the Buffaloes’ lone senior, big man Elijah Malone.
Malone, who was honored in a Senior Night ceremony before the game, hit a 3-pointer with 5:16 to go to put CU ahead 33-25. Then, after teammate Isaiah Johnson missed a 3-pointer, Malone rebounded the miss and eventually dished it back to Johnson, who by then was alone on the right wing and sank a 3 to give Colorado a 36-25 lead.
The Buffaloes tried immediately to get Malone going, but the big man missed a pair of 3-point attempts on Colorado’s first two possessions, while Peat scored 12 of the Wildcats’ first 14 points to keep UA from falling behind significantly early.
"When your team's not playing good, it's great to have a guy like that step up and kind of keep your team in the game," Lloyd said. "Koa did a great job of that in the first half."
Peat tied the game at 14 with a 12-footer with 13:14 left in the half, though 3-pointers from Alon Michaeli and Johnson helped Colorado take a 26-18 lead into the third media timeout with eight minutes left.
Colorado guard Barrington Hargress stole the ball from Bradley, leading to a dunk from Josiah Sanders, and after Bradley missed a layup on UA’s next possession, Hargress drove inside for a layup that gave CU a 30-23 lead.
Both teams were already locked into Big 12 Tournament spots before the game even started. The top-seeded Wildcats will skip to a conference tournament quarterfinal game at noon on Thursday, while the 11th-seeded Buffaloes will open with a first-round game on March 10 at 6:30 against Oklahoma State.
But Lloyd said he hoped the game would prove a teaching tool for the season-defining weeks ahead.
"I think it's important for us to understand as you head into the postseason that you're going to have games like that," Lloyd said, "where you're playing against a team that's playing their ass off and playing really good, and maybe your energy's not quite where you want it to be -- but you've got to be able to dig deep and respond.
"So I was really proud of our guys' effort. Hopefully it was a lesson learned because obviously it'd be great if we could continue to play for a long time."
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Brayden Burries has career-high 31 in Arizona's win at Colorado