On Wednesday afternoon in Kansas City, Missouri, two Big 12 teams clashed in an exciting back-and-forth matchup.
Tad Boyle and the Colorado Buffaloes faced off against Darian DeVries and the West Virginia Mountaineers in the second match of the second round of the 2025 Big 12 Tournament. The game went back and forth in the first half, with West Virginia taking it to Colorado. Tad Boyle made an excellent decision to switch to zone defense in the second half, which paved the way for the Buffaloes to rally back and win the game
With that, here are the top three takeaways from Colorado’s 67-60 win over the Mountaineers.
Malone and Zone
How about the performance by Colorado center Elijah Malone!
He posted 14 points on an impressive 7-10 shooting from the field. Twelve of Malone’s points came in the second half, where Colorado rallied back from a six-point halftime deficit to take the lead and outclass the Mountaineers while keeping Javon Small in check.
One of the biggest changes for Tad Boyle’s group was the realization that West Virginia had no idea how to score against zone defense. In the game’s final 10 minutes, Colorado outscored the Mountaineers by a whopping 14 points! They closed the game out on a 30-16 run to advance to the third round of the Big 12 Tournament.
Small Shrinks
If there was any debate as to who deserved Big 12 Player of the Year honors between West Virginia’s Javon Small and Texas Tech’s JT Toppin, the smoke settled heavily on Wednesday afternoon.
Small was horrible in the second half of West Virginia’s loss to Colorado, taking just one shot from the field until the final three minutes of regulation. He looked great in the first 20, resulting in a halftime lead over the Buffaloes with 13 points to show.
In the final few minutes, Small became a selfish scorer, which opened things up for the Mountaineers. Unfortunately, it was too little too late, as West Virginia now takes the country roads all the way back home to Morgantown.
Ralphie Keeps Running
It’s safe to say that absolutely no one saw Colorado winning back-to-back games in the Big 12 Tournament after their horrendous play in the regular season.
They won just three of their 20 conference games, each of which came against teams on the NCAA Tournament bubble or worse. They lost their first 13 games of conference play before going 3-4 in their last seven with wins over UCF, Baylor, and TCU.
Unfortunately, their reward for winning their first two games is a brutal matchup against the league’s best team, the Houston Cougars. That game tips off on Thursday, March 14th, at 2:00 p.m. central.
