3 takeaways from Colorado’s 75-57 win over Arizona State

The Buffs are back in the win column.

The Colorado Buffaloes beat the Arizona State Sun Devils 75-57 Saturday night in Tempe. The win brings Colorado’s record to 4-2 in Pac-12 play and 12-4 overall. It was the Buffs’ third win in 11 games in Tempe.

Here’s what we learned:

The bench blows the lead

Colorado started hot.

Jabari Walker scored on three of the Buffs’ first four possessions, giving CU a 6-0 lead. Then Evan Battey went on a 6-3 run of his own. Then Walker hit a three to give Colorado a 15-3 lead right out of the gate.

A minute-and-a-half later, Battey, Walker and two other starters left the court. When they returned a short while later, the Buffs led 16-15.

The bench unit struggled to put any points on the board and against a top-tier opponent that causes problems. Luckily CU was able to make a couple more runs of its own, but the speed with which ASU was able to essentially erase a 12-point deficit was concerning.

Julian Hammond, Nique Clifford and KJ Simpson all finished as a net positive for the Buffaloes despite the unit’s early struggles. Hammond, notably, only played three minutes all night.

Colorado’s bench unit has been hit or miss all season, and it saw peaks and valleys again on Saturday night.

The 3-ball can travel

The biggest reason Colorado was able to pull out the win in Tempe was the 3-point shooting.

The Buffs have struggled with the 3-ball all season. Those struggles showed up away from the CU Events Center in particular, as CU’s percentage fell below 22% after a 4-for-20 night at Arizona on Thursday.

On Saturday, though, the Buffs pulled out their best road shooting performance of the season, making 10 of 25 3-point attempts. That’s a 40% clip.

The best part is that a handful of misses after the game was decided dragged that percentage down; Colorado missed five of its last six 4-point attempts.

CU had a five-point lead when Clifford, Evan Battey and Simpson hit from deep on back-to-back-to-back possessions. All of a sudden the Buffs were up 56-45 with 13 minutes to go. They never looked back.

Tristan da Silva’s 3-of-5 night from deep led the way. Jabari Walker and Keeshawn Barthelemy each made two of their five attempts. Battey, Simpson and Clifford all finished 1-of-2.

Hopefully the hot shooting from deep was a sign of good things to come.

Defense always travels

While the shooting can come and go, defense travels. The Buffs’ defense was the catalyst on Saturday, forcing the Sun Devil offense into tough shot after tough shot.

Colorado held a 66-52 lead for a little over 4 minutes. In that time CU missed three field goals and two free throws, and turned the ball over three times; seven consecutive empty possessions.

But it turned out just fine, as CU forced ASU to miss all seven of its shots in that stretch.

Those four minutes cold have been a turning point. In another world, the Sun Devils may have cut the lead from 14 points to five with four minutes to go. But the Buffs held strong.

Scoring droughts will happen with such a young team, but a strong defense will sometimes cover them up.