Buffs hit late shot to stun back-to-back champs UConn in big upset

The Colorado Buffaloes shocked the college basketball world and the kings of it, taking down consecutive reigning champions and the No. 2 ranked team in the country UConn on Tuesday.

Andrej Jakimovski hit a wild running layup barely looking at the hoop in the final moments of the game to give Colorado a 73-72 win over the Huskies. It’s the second day in a row UConn has gone down, after losing to Memphis in overtime of the first round of the Maui Invitational. Colorado fought but dropped to Michigan State on Monday to set up the game with UConn less than 24 hours later.

Oddsmakers had the Huskies as 15.5-point favorites and the Buffs had never beaten a team ranked No. 4 or better outside of Boulder. In fact, Colorado was just 4-48 against teams ranked No. 3 or better in their program’s history.

A decent first half kept Colorado in the game but it’s the start of the second half where the Buffaloes announced themselves as a threat. Going on an 11-0 run in the opening moments after the break, Colorado’s own Julian Hammond got it going. The Cherry Creek graduate finished with 16 points and played co-star with Grace College transfer Elijah Malone. The big man scored 16 points and got both of the Huskies’ rotational bigs to foul out which is even more impressive when you consider Malone was playing at the NAIA level last year and he just carried a power conference team to an upset of players who hoisted the title last year.

“He called the play for me it was an iso game at the top of the key and I knew I would need to finish it,” Jakimovski said of the final score. “I saw the rim at first but I didn’t see it go in until I fell on the court.”

Jakimovski finished with 12 points and 10 rebounds, recording his first double-double in black and gold after transferring from Washington State this summer.

Colorado left five seconds on the clock and just needed a stop to seal it, which they did.

“Colorado basketball is built to do this,” Boyle said of what he told his team in the huddle on the team’s postgame show. “We’re built to get stops to win games.”

Andrej called game.

📺ESPN2 pic.twitter.com/Dnhf5hAjgz

— Colorado Men's Basketball (@CUBuffsMBB) November 26, 2024

“I’ve got a lot of respect for that program, two-time national champions speaks for itself,” Boyle said. “People have no idea how good that offense is no matter what their personnel is.”

 

Colorado will take on the winner of Tuesday’s Dayton-No. 5 Iowa State game on Wednesday at 12:30 M.T. The Buffaloes will meet the Cyclones in Ames in February if they don’t meet to wrap up the trip to Hawai’i.