3 takeaways from Colorado's 86-63 win over Oregon State

BOULDER — The Buffs are back in the win column.

Colorado blow out Oregon State at the CU Events Center in a 86-63 victory Saturday. The win improves the Buffs’ record to 6-7 in conference play and 14-9 overall. Colorado had lost five of the six previous games before Saturday.

Here’s what we learned:

The Buffs can’t miss early

Colorado got off to a hot start and never looked back.

The Buffs made their first eight 3-pointers of the game. Eight. Jabari Walker hit two of them. So did Keeshawn Barthelemy. K.J. Simpson, Julian Hammond, Tristan da Silva  and Luke O’Brien each hit one of them.

Colorado made three 3-pointers before Oregon State scored its first point.

By halftime, Colorado was 11-15 from deep and 19-28 overall. The Buffs led 49-27. Barthelemy, Walker, Battey, da Silva, O’Brien and Simpson were all shooting better than 50% from the field. Hammond was 1-for-2.

Nique Clifford, the only player under .500, finished the game with 15 points on 6-of-9 shooting.

It’s tough to put into words just how impressive the performance was. The Buffs simply couldn’t miss. Even the ill-advised drives into the paint somehow ended up with the ball in the basket.

The craziest part might be that CU didn’t shoot a free throw until more than five minutes into the second half and they still dropped 49 in the opening frame. And they won the rebounding battle 17-7, too.

Most of the damage came against Oregon State’s zone defense, surprising considering the Buffs have struggled against zone all season. But the Beavers collapsed to the lane far too easily and the Buffs had plenty of shooters at the 3-point line with open looks.

In the second half, CU shot 46% from the field and, somehow, it felt disappointing.

That should tell you just how dominant the Buffs were in the early-going.

The guards show out

The majority of the problems for Colorado this season have started in the backcourt.

Last time out, the point guard duo of Simpson and Barthelemy combined for the 0 points in the first half. This time around, the pair combined for 21 first-half points. They only scored four in the second half, but the Buffs’ offense was still flowing just fine.

Both guards finished beautiful first-half drives with contested buckets at the rim. Both were serious threats from deep for the majority of the game. The pair combined for 25 points in 45 minutes. They shot 9-of-15 from the field with six assists, five rebounds and one turnover.

The Buffs have struggled in a variety of ways this season, but many of them could potentially be traced back to the point guard position. Rumors of a change in the lineup have swirled but nobody has proven that they are capable of holding down the job longterm.

Finally, on Saturday, the Buffs found a strong performance from both of its point guards.

Things that went well

Games like the one on Saturday don’t come around often, so let’s celebrate before they have to get back to business against Utah next week.

Here’s a list of all the areas in which the Buffs beat the Beavers:

• points
• field goal percentage
• 3-point percentage
• free throw percentage
• rebounds
• second-chance points
• bench points
• points in the paint
• fastbreak points
• blocks
• assists

Well, that was fun. Let’s see if CU can carry this momentum into next week.