Tristan da Silva scored a career-high 30 points and added seven rebounds and three steals to fuel Colorado to a 68-41 victory over Oregon on Thursday in a Pac-12 game at Boulder, Colo.
da Silva made 11 of 17 shots from the floor — and 3 of 4 from 3-point range — after being limited to single-digit scoring performances in each of his previous two games. The junior’s point total on Thursday eclipsed his previous career high of 26, set during the Buffaloes’ 88-77 victory over Northern Colorado on Dec. 18.
Sophomore Julian Hammond III scored 13 of his career-high 16 points in the first half for Colorado (10-6, 2-3 Pac-12), which has won six of its past seven games overall and five straight at home.
Nique Clifford scored 13 points and junior Luke O’Brien recorded six points and a career-high 11 rebounds off the bench.
The Buffaloes also won without reigning Pac-12 Player of the Week KJ Simpson (stomach bug). Simpson scored 31 points in Colorado’s 73-70 victory at Stanford on Dec. 29 and 25 in an 80-76 loss at Cal on Saturday.
Quincy Guerrier scored 10 points and Brennan Rigsby added eight for the Ducks (8-7, 2-2), who shot just 26.9 percent from the floor (14 of 52) and 7.1 percent from 3-point range (1 of 14).
Colorado, which enjoyed a wire-to-wire victory, got off to a fast start as da Silva and Hammond each drained a pair of 3-pointers to stake their team to a 21-8 lead. Hammond added four consecutive free throws to push the Buffaloes’ advantage to 37-17 before Rigsby’s layup capped the scoring in the first half.
da Silva made a jumper and a dunk early in the second half and added a layup and a 3-pointer to push Colorado’s lead to 52-27 with 12:23 to play.
The game was never in doubt the rest of the way.
–Field Level Media