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Britney Garcia

Buffaloes fall to No. 5 Iowa State in Maui Invite finale

RJ Smith Iowa State

MAUI, Hawaii – After a 73-72 upset win against the defending champion UConn Huskies on Tuesday, the Colorado Buffaloes (5-2) were hoping to gain momentum from that game to the next against the Iowa State Cyclones (5-1), but that plan was unsuccessful. The Buffs fell to No. 5 Iowa State in a 99-71 blowout Wednesday afternoon.


Point guard Julian Hammond III led the Buffs with 20 points for the night, and forward Andrej Jakimovski followed the scoring trend with a total of 18 points. 


Iowa State had six players in double-figures, including 24 points from Milan Momcilovic, leading the Cyclones. The Buffaloes only had the duo of Hammond and Jakimovski with double digits.


The Buffaloes ended the matchup with 18 turnovers which the Cyclones' defense forced upon them. This also gave Iowa State a 22-6 fast-break point advantage.


With nine minutes to play in the first half, the Buffs did have a good start, holding a 22-20 lead. However, turnovers allowed the Buffs to lose the lead very quickly, and the Cyclones closed the first half with a 45-34 lead.


The Buffs couldn't come back from the deficit in the second half. Turnovers were a huge problem for the Buffaloes, and that reflected on the box score, as Iowa State had leads up to the 20s and 30s in the half, which resulted in a 54-37 score in the second half. The sound defeat caused the Buffs to drop to sixth place in the Maui Invitational. 


"That's 51 of their 99 points that we have a direct result of causing," Coach Tad Boyle said of CU’s many miscues. "You put the combination of turnovers and not boxing out and not guarding, this is what you get against a good team, and Iowa State's a hell of a program, hell of a team." 


The Buffaloes couldn't find their rhythm in the second half as the Cyclone's defense continued to force problems for the Buffs’ offensive side of the ball. Iowa State built their lead to 33 points over the Buffs in the final minutes, but Colorado never found a solution to close the gap.


"For us, everything starts on defense, and they scored 99 points," Jakimovski said. "We just couldn't get stops, and like  Coach said, we didn't take care of the ball. Those are two huge things for us. Now, we have to bounce back. It was a great experience for us. We got a taste of what the Big 12 is, and I think we'll be ready." 


The Cyclones and the Buffs will face off again for conference play on February 18th at 6 PM at Iowa State.


The Buffs will return to the CU Events Center on Monday to face the Pacific University Tigers (4-4) at 7 p.m. MT. The game will be streamed on ESPN+.

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