INDIANAPOLIS — Colorado’s KJ Simpson hit a baseline jumper with one second remaining Friday to give the Buffaloes a heart-stopping 102-100 win over Florida in the NCAA Tournament first round at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.
Tad Boyle‘s 10th-seeded Buffs improved to 26-10 and will play No. 2 seed Marquette on Sunday.
The victory gave Colorado back-to-back NCAA Tournament wins for the first time since the 1955 Buffaloes advanced to the Final Four. The 102 points were also the most ever by the Buffs in the tournament.
The seventh-seeded Gators saw their season end at 24-12.
Simpson led the Buffs with 23 points and he had five rebounds and five of CU’s 27 assists (tying the CU team record for most assists in an NCAA Tournament game). Eddie Lampkin Jr. scored 21 points and had six rebounds, Tristan da Silva tallied 17 points and five assists, J’Vonne Hadley added 16 points and six rebounds and Luke O’Brien chipped in 12 points and five boards.
Walter Clayton Jr. led Florida with 33 points.
The Buffs shot 63% from the floor (34-for-54), including 6-for-10 from 3-point range, and also hit 28 of their 33 free throw attempts. Florida hit 35 of its 68 field goal tries (51.5%) and was 11-for-25 from beyond the arc.
“You can’t ask for much more out of a game in March than the one you just saw,” said Boyle, who became CU’s all-time leader in NCAA Tournament wins with his fourth. “These guys and the way they battled — I thought both teams battled. Hats off to Florida. They played well. To show the poise and composure that we did down the stretch when they made their run back at us, it was a tough, tough game. I thought to myself at halftime, if we don’t start guarding better, if we don’t start guarding better, we’ve got to score 100 to win tonight. We only needed 101 but we got 102.”
The Buffs trailed by 10 early in the game but fought back to knot the score at 45-45 at intermission. CU then used an 11-2 run early in the second half to take control and the Buffs maintained that edge, holding a 13-point lead, 94-81, with just 4:28 to play.
But the CU offense, which had scored on 14 straight possessions, went cold and the Gators rallied. Florida’s Clayton scored 16 points in the final 3:46 to fuel a 19-6 Gators run and his 3-pointer with 9 seconds remaining tied the game at 100-100.
That, though, was just enough time for the Buffs to bring the ball up court and call a timeout. Simpson took the inbounds pass from Cody Williams, dribbled to the baseline and launched a jumper that rattled around the rim seemingly forever before finally dropping through the net with 1 second on the clock.
“It was just another one of those times where we had to execute,” Simpson said. “Obviously it was a play that was set up. There were multiple actions out of it. I happened to break free and was just looking to drive, create something, whatever was the best play, and noticed the defender got a little bit off balance and that’s a shot I shoot a bunch of times. Credit to my teammates. Cody threw me a great pass that was able to guide me and lead me in that direction, and it was just stepping up and hitting a shot.”
HOW IT HAPPENED: The two teams battled to a 45-45 tie at the break after a first half that featured 10 lead changes.
The lead then changed hands three more times early in the second half before Colorado put together an 11-2 run that finished with a 6-0 burst.
Da Silva started the surge with a 3-pointer, followed by a Lampkin tip-in, two free throws from Simpson and back-to-back buckets from O’Brien.
O’Brien’s second bucket gave the Buffs a 65-58 lead — their biggest of the game to that point — and prompted a Florida timeout with 12:25 to play.
Colorado then maintained control out of the break, pushing its lead to 75-66 on a Lampkin basket inside with 9:13 remaining before Florida came back to shave CU’s lead to five, 77-72, on 3-pointers from Will Richard and Riley Kugel.
But Lampkin scored again inside on a play that incensed the Florida bench and resulted in a technical foul on Gators coach Todd Golden. That resulted in three straight CU free throws — two by J’Vonne Hadley on the technical and one from Lampkin on the and-one basket — and Colorado bumped its lead to double digits, 82-72, with 7:44 to play.
Colorado built its lead to 13 over the next two minutes. CU hit three more free throws and Cody Williams scored inside for a 5-0 run and the Buffs led by 13, 92-79, with under five minutes to play.
The Buffs scored on 14 straight possessions in the stretch and still had a 94-81 lead after a da Silva dunk with 4:28 to play.
“Look, we play at a mile high (altitude), so we always want to play fast,” Boyle said. “We love to get out and run. We’re a good transition team when we get stops. Unfortunately tonight we were taking the ball out of the net a lot, which is a little bit more difficult. We anticipated a game like this, but the one thing about these games, you’d better keep scoring the ball.”
But the Gators then staged a late comeback. Colorado came up empty on five consecutive trips down the floor and the Gators cut the Buffs’ cushion to six, 94-88, with a 7-0 run.
Williams stopped the Florida run with a pair of free throws but the Gators shaved the lead to four on a Clayton three-point play.
Simpson briefly pushed CU’s lead back to six with a drive to the basket with 48 seconds remaining only to see Clayton drain a 3-pointer with 37 seconds left to cut Colorado’s edge to 99-96.
The Buffs then turned the ball over on the ensuing inbounds play. Clayton was fouled and hit one of two free throws with 22 seconds before Williams hit one of two for Colorado to give the Buffs a 100-97 lead with 14 seconds left.
But Clayton hit a long 3-pointer with 9 seconds remaining to tie the game at 100-100 and the Buffaloes called time out with 6 seconds remaining.
“He made some tough shots,” Boyle said of Clayton. “That last three at the end, I don’t think it was bad defense, we just came down and raised, and he’s a good player.”
Still, the Buffs had enough time to get the ball up the court, call time out and draw up a play.
Simpson then clinched the win with his buzzer beater.
“Our guys kept their composure,” Boyle said. “In terms of the last play, last timeout, like KJ said, we go through those plays. We don’t always need them, but you have to have them in your bag when you’re ready. And that was a play where we tried to get him an (isolation) drive with six seconds to go with Eddie at the rim to clean things up, and then Tristan and J’Vonne got two-man action up top. So if that’s not there, there’s a next option.”
After a see-saw opening few minutes, Colorado fell behind as the Gators hit 10 of their first 19 shots, including three 3-pointers, to take a 24-14 lead less than eight minutes in.
But the Buffs withstood the early barrage and fought back. Bangot Dak scored inside to start a 10-2 run, followed by a Tristan da Silva dunk, a Luke O’Brien drive to the hoop and two free throws apiece from J’Vonne Hadley and Cody Williams.
With 8:31 to play in the first half, the Buffs had shaved the deficit to 26-24.
CU continued to chip away at the Gators’ edge. Simpson re-entered the game after a brief respite on the bench and hit a 3-pointer to cut Florida’s lead to one. Eddie Lampkin Jr. finally gave Colorado its first lead since the opening minutes with a bucket inside for a 36-35 CU edge at the 3:34 mark.
The two teams then traded the lead five more times over the next three minutes before Simpson hit a 15-footer just before the halftime buzzer to send the two teams into the break tied at 45-45.
Both teams shot well in the first half. CU hit 17-of-28 tries from the floor while Florida shot 17-for-33. The Buffs also had 14 assists with Simpson and da Silva each scoring nine points.
DECISIVE STRETCH: This one wasn’t decided until the final second when Simpson gave CU the win with his baseline jumper.
WHAT IT MEANS: Along with extending their program record for wins to 26, the Buffs also won their second NCAA Tournament game in a row for the first time since 1955. Boyle now owns the CU record for NCAA victories (four).
KEY STATISTICS: The Buffs shot 63% from the floor (34-for-54), including 6-for-10 from 3-point range, and also hit 28 of their 33 free throw attempts. Florida hit 35 of its 68 field goal tries (51.5%) and was 11-for-25 from beyond the arc.
NEXT UP: Colorado now faces No. 2 seed Marquette on Sunday at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.
