BOULDER — The main thing was not to fall into the hole.
With enough recent memories of being in the Big 12 Conference cellar, the Colorado Buffaloes stayed above ground the whole way Wednesday night in defeating Nebraska 72-60 in the Coors Events Center.
The Buffaloes needed a victory over the Cornhuskers to keep from slipping into a tie with them at the bottom of the conference standings.
With 9-of-24 shooting from 3-point range and a pesky defense that forced 16 Nebraska turnovers, coach Jeff Bzdelik’s Buffaloes (11-9, 2-4 Big 12) led by as many as 20 points with 8:45 left in the game.
The Buffs were 1-15 in the conference last year.
“What we really wanted to do was take away their 3-point production,” Bzdelik said. “That was the focus of ours. We had some good defensive possessions. We failed to finish some of those, but we’re getting better.”
The Cornhuskers (12-8, 0-5) never got going fast enough to pull out of even a shallow depression until late in the second half, when they reduced the deficit to 10 points with 59 seconds remaining.
But down the stretch of the second half, junior guard Cory Higgins picked up his game with seven straight points for the Buffs, giving them a 13-point lead with 3:11 to play. Higgins finished with 11 points, and guard Nate Tomlinson added 10.
“I started to play more aggressively,” Higgins said of the burst. “No matter what we did, we didn’t want to be in that basement. We’ve been in there the last two years, and we’re going to do everything to get out of it.”
Freshman guard Alec Burks kept up his torrid scoring with 21 points, maintaining his standing of being the only true freshman in NCAA Division I to have double figures in scoring in every game this season. The streak reached 20.
The Buffs shot 48.8 percent from the floor against Nebraska’s defense, which came into the game ranked No. 1 in the conference at 60.4 points a game.
Irv Moss: 303-954-1296 or imoss@denverpost.com
