MBB Falls to Colorado 76-74

Saturday, February 22

Boulder, Colo.

3 PM

Baylor

Colorado

MBB Falls to Colorado 76-74

2/22/2025 5:30:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score Box Score

BU's Omier leads the way for the Bears with 18 points and 13 boards

By: Jerry Hill

BOULDER, Colo. – Missing its last five shots and turning it over twice late, Colorado left the door open for the Baylor Bears to come back from a 10-point deficit in the last 4 ½ minutes Saturday at the CU Events Center.

The Bears (16-11, 8-8) just couldn't quite squeeze through it, falling to the last-place Buffaloes, 76-74, and dropping to a tie for seventh in the Big 12 standings with TCU.

"They've had opportunities to win," Baylor coach Scott Drew said of Colorado, which has won two of its last three games after snapping a 13-game losing streak with last Saturday's win over UCF. "They got over the hump with Central Florida, and obviously they continued that with us today"

The already-shorthanded Bears found themselves another man down when senior guard Jayden Nunn got sick and had a streak of consecutive games played stopped at 116, which dated back to his freshman season at VCU. Baylor is 1-3 since losing 6-10 redshirt junior center Josh Ojianwuna to a season-ending knee injury.

Duke transfer Jeremy Roach was the only bench player in what amounted to a six-player rotation, but freshmen Jason Asemota and Marino Dubravcic played a combined 10 minutes, with Asemota scoring his first points (two) since Jan. 25 at Utah.

Colorado (11-16, 2-14), which improved to 11-6 at home, had a late 12-2 run to take its biggest lead of the game, 71-61, on a pair of free throws by Bangot Dak with 4:32 left.

Scoreless in the first half, Cal transfer Jalen Celestine scored eight of his 11 points in a 59-second stretch with a pair of 3-pointers and a driving layup that made it a two-point game, 74-72, with 29 seconds left.

The Buffs' Julian Hammond III hit a pair of free throws to push it back to a two-possession game, but freshman VJ Edgecombe kept hope alive with a dunk off a missed layup by Roach with four ticks left.

"We outrebounded them 15-5 (on the offensive glass)," Drew said of the Bears' 19-7 edge in second-chance points. "Normally, that's good enough to win it. But 36% from the field, their length must've bothered us, because we missed a lot of layups."

Fouled immediately by Miami transfer Norchad Omier on the inbounds pass, Trevor Baskin missed a pair of free throws with 1.5 seconds left. Omier rebounded the second miss and threw a quick outlet to Roach, but he wasn't able to get a shot off before time expired.

"Too many missed layups, too many missed open shots," Drew said, "and most of all, we didn't do a very good job defensively, when in the first half we were bad offensively but pretty good defensively. In the second half, we weren't very good at all. Credit them, they did a good job attacking, getting to the rim. Coach (Tad) Boyle had them running good actions."

Despite shooting just 25% in the first half, Baylor had a 32-30 lead at the break and went up by as many as six, 48-42, on a Celestine 3-pointer with 12:59 left in the game.

In a back-and-forth game that featured six ties and nine lead changes, Roach tied it up at 59-59 on a three-point play with 6:51 remaining, putting the Bears in position to pick up their fourth conference road win.

But the Buffaloes hit 13 of their first 15 free throws in the second half and 21-of-23 overall before Baskin's late misses.

Omier recorded his 15^th double-double of the season and 83^rd of his career with a game-high 18 points and 13 rebounds. Langston Love hit three 3-pointers and scored 17 points, while Celestine and Roach scored 11 points apiece for the Bears.

Andrej Jakimovski led four double-figure scorers for Colorado with 17 points, seven rebounds and five assists.

Baylor will try to bounce back with a road game against Cincinnati (16-11, 6-10) at 6 p.m. Tuesday in a game broadcast by ESPN2. The Bears return home to host Oklahoma State (13-14, 5-11) at 7 p.m. next Saturday, March 1, at Foster.