Fast break

Why the Buffs lost: UCLA took advan­tage of nine first-half turnovers by CU to post a 15–2 edge in points off turnovers in the open­ing frame. The Bru­ins fin­ished with a 19–4 advan­tage in points off turnovers off of CU’s 14 giveaways.

Three stars

UCLA’s Sebas­t­ian Mack: Went 7‑for-11 from the field and 5‑for‑7 at the free throw line before fin­ish­ing with 19 points and four rebounds.

UCLA’s Adem Bona: One of the top post play­ers in the Pac-12 post­ed 14 points, sev­en rebounds, two steals and a blocked shot.

CU’s Cody Williams: The tal­ent­ed fresh­man shook off a recent slide by going 8‑for‑9 with 18 points.

Up next: The Buffs will try to sal­vage a split of their final Pac-12 trip through Los Ange­les on Sat­ur­day night at USC (8 p.m. MT, ESPN).

LOS ANGELES — The frus­tra­tions con­tin­ued for the Col­orado men’s bas­ket­ball team. And the hole the Buf­faloes have dug for them­selves in terms of a poten­tial NCAA Tour­na­ment bid con­tin­ues to get deeper.

A sec­ond-half come­back went for naught on Thurs­day for the Buffs, as UCLA held on down the stretch to hand CU a 64–60 defeat in the final Pac-12 Con­fer­ence vis­it to Pauley Pavilion.

It was CU’s fourth loss in the past five games and was UCLA’s sixth con­sec­u­tive vic­to­ry against the Buffs, who have lost nine of their past 10 games against the Bruins.

The Buffs shot a robust .571 in the first half (12-for-21) but couldn’t get out of their own way, com­mit­ting nine first-half turnovers. UCLA took advan­tage of the gen­eros­i­ty to post a 15–2 advan­tage in points off turnovers in the first half alone while build­ing a 38–29 lead at the break.

It was the sixth con­sec­u­tive win for the surg­ing Bru­ins and their eighth in the past nine games.

“First half turnovers cost us this game,” CU head coach Tad Boyle said. “I don’t say this after loss­es very often, but I’m very proud of this team for how the way they fought and scratched and clawed. Because I thought our com­pet­i­tive­ness and our defense, even our offense, was real­ly good in the sec­ond half. You shoot 52% from the floor, but they have 19 points off our turnovers and it’s a one-pos­ses­sion game. That’s all you need to know right there.”

Two more turnovers by CU in the first two min­utes of the sec­ond half helped the Bru­ins push their lead to 14 points at 43–29 before the Buffs final­ly start­ed chip­ping away. UCLA went over five min­utes with­out a field goal while the Buffs com­bined con­tin­ued strong shoot­ing with a sud­den rem­e­dy for the turnover problems.

CU tied the game at 51–51 on a KJ Simp­son-to-Tris­tan da Sil­va dunk with a lit­tle less than 7 min­utes remain­ing, and the game was tied again at 54–54 on a da Sil­va 3‑pointer with about 4:50 to play. UCLA, how­ev­er, respond­ed with a 9–2 run, giv­ing the Bru­ins a 63–56 lead with 2:06 remaining.

The Buffs remained with­in 63–60 on a dri­ving bas­ket by fresh­man Cody Williams, and a defen­sive stop gave CU a final chance after tak­ing a time­out with 17 sec­onds remain­ing. But a dri­ving attempt from da Sil­va was off the mark, and UCLA’s Lazar Ste­fanovic knocked down a free throw with 2.1 sec­onds left to seal the win for UCLA.

“We kind of dug our­selves a hole, espe­cial­ly in the first half,” da Sil­va said. “That’s real­ly all it came down to for us, (19) points off turnovers. We don’t have to be per­fect, but it can’t be like 20 points.”

Williams shook off a mini-slump over the pre­vi­ous three games by going 8‑for‑9 with 18 points, while da Sil­va hit three 3‑pointers and fin­ished with 16 points. Simp­son went 1‑for‑7 and fin­ished with a sea­son-low four points, although he also record­ed team-highs of sev­en rebounds and five assists.

CU out­shot the Bru­ins .522 to .444, but the Buffs couldn’t over­come UCLA’s lop­sided 19–4 advan­tage in points off turnovers. UCLA did grab 10 offen­sive rebounds but nev­er real­ly took advan­tage of the extra chances, as it was the Buffs who post­ed an 8–6 edge in sec­ond-chance points despite grab­bing four few­er offen­sive boards.

The Buffs lost for just the ninth time in 114 games under Boyle in which they have shot at least 50%. And once again, CU will have very lit­tle time to regroup ahead of a Sat­ur­day night date at USC.

“I think the biggest thing is com­ing out and real­ly lock­ing-in on the defen­sive end from the jump,” Williams said. “Just tak­ing care of the ball was a big thing. If you turn the ball over (against UCLA) you’re not going to get the ball back for 35 sec­onds, because they’re going to run it to the final sec­ond of the shot clock. He want­ed to get the game going fast and we did that bet­ter in the sec­ond half than the first half. We kind of just dug our­selves a hole, which is why we came up a lit­tle bit short.”

COLORADO (16–9, 7–7 Pac-12)

C.Williams 8–9 0–0 18, da Sil­va 6–11 1–2 16, Lamp­kin 5–7 2–2 12, Hadley 3–8 2–4 8, Simp­son 1–7 1–2 4, Ham­mond 1–3 0–0 2, O’Brien 0–1 0–0 0. Totals 24–46 6–10 60.

UCLA (14–11, 9–5)

Bona 5–9 4–5 14, Andrews 5–11 1–2 13, Mack 7–11 5–7 19, Ste­fanovic 2–5 1–2 6, B.Williams 1–4 1–2 4, McClen­don 1–7 0–0 2, Buyuk­tun­cel 2–5 0–0 4, Mara 1–2 0–0 2, Nwu­ba 0–0 0–0 0. Totals 24–54 12–18 64.

Half­time — UCLA 38–29. 3‑point field goals — Col­orado 6–15 (da Sil­va 3–6, C.Williams 2–3, Simp­son 1–3, O’Brien 0–1, Ham­mond 0–2), UCLA 4–12 (Andrews 2–3, Ste­fanovic 1–2, B.Williams 1–3, Mack 0–1, McClen­don 0–3). Rebounds — Col­orado 29 (Simp­son 7), UCLA 29 (Bona 7). Assists — Col­orado 14 (Simp­son 5), UCLA 8 (McClen­don 3). Turnovers — Col­orado 14 (Williams 4); UCLA 5 (Andrews 3). Total fouls — Col­orado 15, UCLA 12. Atten­dance — 7,183.