BOULDER, Colo., — Kevin Parrom couldn’t knock down a 3-pointer at the buzzer and Colorado defeated Arizona 64-63 on Saturday in the Coors Events Center.
Despite shooting only 7-for-27 in the second half, Arizona clawed back from a four-point second-half deficit to take a 63-61 lead with 1:39 remaining off of a Parrom jump hook.
But senior guard Carlon Brown, who finished with 19 points, answered with a three to give CU the 64-63 lead with 1:19 left in the game. UA guard Kyle Fogg had a chance to regain the lead for the Wildcats as he went to the line for a 1-and-1 with 1:01 left.
Arizona’s senior leader couldn’t convert, however, as he missed the front end of the 1-and-1, spoiling the Wildcats’ chance to take the lead.
“That’s the position I’ve been working for to get into all my life and tonight I let me team down and missed a free throw,” Fogg said after the game.
After Fogg’s miss neither team would score again as Arizona came up empty on its final possession. UA head coach Sean Miller said his team passed up a 13-footer he would have liked to see taken instead of the 3-pointer, and that the Wildcats’ lack of a late-game scorer hurt them.
“Late in the game, individual players have to make free throws and individual players to win the game, and tonight we were 0-for,” MIller said.
Miller went on to say that he hates attributing losses to simply missing shots, but that’s exactly what Arizona did Saturday night. The Wildcats led 39-35 at halftime but missed their first seven shots from the field to start the second half.
Colorado took a 43-41 lead that it held until 1:39 remained, a span that resulted in large part due to UA’s 25.9 second-half shooting percentage.
“One of the things that I don’t really like to say is that we just couldn’t make a shot because it almost sounds like a cop-out as a coach, but that is the case,” Miller said after the game. “I would say we had six to eight that I would consider the best shot in the gym for us. Wide open.”
Arizona only turned the ball over 11 times, out-rebounded the Buffs 44-35 and put itself in a position to win late in a hostile environment. But UA’s ice-cold shooting and inability to come up with big plays led to its demise.
Jesse Perry finished with 20 points and 10 rebounds. Fogg scored 16 points on 3-of-12 shooting, but the Wildcats couldn’t find enough offense in the second half to steal a victory.
Arizona made only 1-of-9 3s in the second half to finish the game 3-of-20 beyond the arc. Neither team shot the ball well — Arizona finished at 34.5 percent and Colorado at 40.7 percent — but it was the Buffs’ ability to get stops and come up with big plays that won them the game.
With the win the Buffaloes move to 5-2 in conference, while the Wildcats moved to 4-3 and now sits in sixth place in the Pac-12. Perry said that the team doesn’t think the season’s over and there’s still a chance to make the tournament.
If UA hopes to return to the NCAA Tournament for a second straight season the Wildcats need to rebound against the Washington schools, who they host on Thursday and Saturday in McKale Center.
