KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Andrej Jakimovski had 18 points, Julian Hammond III added 16 and Colorado was perfect at the foul line in the final 20 seconds, allowing the 16th and last seed in the Big 12 Tournament to hold on for a 69-67 victory over No. 9 seed TCU on Tuesday.

Hammond made a pair of foul shots for the Buffaloes (13-19) with 20 seconds left for a 67-65 lead, and after TCU answered with a goal-tending call at the other end, Javon Ruffin made two more free throws with 5.8 seconds left to put the game away.

TCU (16-16) also lost to Colorado last Saturday in the teams' regular-season finale.

The Buffaloes, who returned to the Big 12 from the Pac-12 and are playing in the league's tournament for the first time since the 2011 season, will play eighth-seeded West Virginia on Wednesday for a spot in the quarterfinal round.

Noah Reynolds had 17 points and Trazarien White scored 13 for the Horned Frogs, who trailed 63-50 with 5 minutes to go before scoring the next 10 points, making it a tense final minute for a small but loud crowd inside T-Mobile Center.

Takeaways

Colorado is undisputedly playing its best basketball of the season. It dropped its first 13 conference games before winning three of its final seven entering the tournament.

TCU can point to slow starts to each half as the biggest reasons for the loss. The Horned Frogs didn't make a field goal until there was 12:06 left in the first half, and they did not hit a field goal until the 15:09 mark of the second.

Key moment

Bangot Dak dunked off a nifty feed from Trevor Baskin to give TCU a 65-60 lead with just over a minute to go.

Key stats

Colorado went 18 of 24 from the foul line. TCU was just 10 of 20.

Up next

The Buffaloes will play the Mountaineers in the second round Wednesday.

Crass or cool, awesome or eyesore: Big 12 Tournament's logo'd court makes a statement either way

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark wanted the league's postseason tournament to reflect his idealized version of the league — young, hip, upscale and current — and that spilled like a bucket of paint onto the floor this week.

Goodbye, clean and traditional hardwood. Welcome, a court emblazoned with hundreds of “XII” logos that stretch from baseline to baseline and result in a polarizing Louis Vuitton-like look to some fans and an abhorrent eyesore to others.

“That court isn't about me. It's about our student-athletes,” Yormark said Tuesday, shortly before Cincinnati and Oklahoma State stepped onto it for the first game in the newly expanded 16-team Big 12 Tournament.

“When I first got here," Yormark continued, “it was all about modernizing and contemporizing our brand, and connecting to the culture of current and future student-athletes, and that's what we're doing.”

The gray-hued floor actually debuted during last week's women's Big 12 Tournament, featuring black baselines and sidelines and the Big 12 logo splashed across center court. The product is cool or crass, awesome or ugly, depending on who you ask, yet there appeared to be precious little middle ground among basketball fans.

“I think the Big 12 Tournament floor is going to give me a panic attack,” hoops analytics expert Erik Haslam wrote on X, while others joked about staring at the floor long enough to see hidden messages. Some complained that it was causing problems for TV cameras trying to focus, especially for those streaming games, or that it might cause them to have a seizure.

Other fans thought it was daring and fashionable, or at least palatable.

Such avant-garde court designs certainly are the rage these days. FAU has an array of palm trees painted across its floor, slash marks cut across the floor at Memphis, and the NBA Cup has become known for its decorated playing surfaces.

The Big 12 court also reflects its partnership with trendy sportswear brand UNDEFEATED, whose “5-strike” logo runs along the baseline. The boutique is known for its collaborations with a focus on sports, art, music and street culture.

“I got here early and Iowa State practiced and the entire team said they loved it, loved being here. I think it's aspirational. We wanted to make a profound statement," Yormark explained. “In life, you never get it perfectly correct, but I think the people that matter the most that are weighing in love it, and that's what matters to me.”

The Big 12 will reduce men's conference basketball schedule to 18 teams beginning next season

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The Big 12 will reduce its men's conference basketball schedule to 18 games next season, answering the concerns of numerous coaches who argued that the 20-game grind of this past season provided their teams with no time for rest.

The conference, which began its postseason tournament Tuesday, expanded to 16 teams this season with the addition of Utah, Arizona and Arizona State along with the return of Colorado from the Pac-12. With the departure of longtime members Oklahoma and Texas to the SEC, that nevertheless left the league with the largest number of members in its history.

“That is our anticipation to go to 18 games,” said Brian Thornton, the Big 12 vice president who oversees men's basketball. “One of the impetuses for that is the balance of conference versus nonconference games. It's extremely important for the competitive nature of our conference to have the ability to have a bye built into our schedule.”

The extra day off would be especially beneficial for schools in the East such as Cincinnati, West Virginia and UCF and those in the West, such as BYU, Utah and the Arizona schools. They often have to travel long distances for games.

“Playing 20 games post-Christmas makes that impossible to do,” Thornton explained. “We're going to try 18 games and we're going to see how that goes. It's extremely important to ensure we have quality nonconference games played before Christmas, and that is something we're discussing with our schools as well.”

Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark said the league was committed to producing schedules that put its athletes first.

“We're very mindful of the wear and tear and that travel is one of our guiding principles when we think about scheduling," he said. “We're making sure we're very sensitive to that, and that will continue.”

In other scheduling news, Yormark underscored the Big 12's commitment to Kansas City, which has been awarded its postseason conference tournament through 2031 — despite the addition of four schools on the league's western edges.

Some fans from Arizona, Arizona State, Utah and Colorado have expressed their dismay at having to travel to the Midwest after having watched their teams play in the old Pac-12 Tournament in Las Vegas from 2013 through last season.

“Listen, they've been in Vegas for a long time. They liked Vegas. Vegas was great for them,” said Yormark, who took the Big 12's football media day to Las Vegas last year, and whose conference will send the top two men's basketball teams that fail to make the NCAA Tournament to the new College Basketball Crown event being played there March 31-April 6.

Yormark added that those who traveled to Kansas City for the women's Big 12 tourney last week came away impressed.

“Across the board, they loved it,” he said. “It was a first-class experience they haven't had anywhere else.”

Yormark and Thornton also said the league was committed to its postseason tournament setup, where the top four teams earn double-byes into the quarterfinal rounds. The next set of four get a single bye and the lowest eight play first-round games.

“We always want to reward our teams that have great years throughout the course of the season,” Thornton said. “That's extremely important. Half of our teams will be in the NCAA Tournament, and for our teams that have played really well through the course of the year, we don't want them playing four or five games ahead of the NCAA Tournament.”

Houston paces AP Big 12 honors again, Kelvin Sampson repeats as top coach and LJ Cryer top player

Houston's Kelvin Sampson is The Associated Press Big 12 coach of the year for the second year in a row and Cougars guard LJ Cryer is the league’s top player after another regular-season conference title for the second-ranked program.

Texas Tech sophomore JT Toppin was named the newcomer of the year Tuesday and was a unanimous pick on the AP All-Big 12 first team. The New Mexico transfer is the only Big 12 player who ranks top three in both scoring (18.1 ppg) and rebounding (9.3 rpg).

Joining Cryer and Toppin as AP first-team picks were 7-foot-2 Kansas graduate center Hunter Dickinson, BYU junior Richie Saunders and West Virginia senior Javon Small.

Houston has won the Big 12 regular-season title in both seasons since joining the league after winning back-to-back American Athletic Conference titles. The Cougars (27-4) set Big 12 and school records by winning 19 conference games.

Cryer is averaging 15.3 points a game and is the league's top 3-pointer shooter making 43.1% (93 of 216) of his long-range shots. The 6-foot-1 Texas native has started all 68 games for Houston the past two seasons after beginning his college career with three years at Baylor, where he was part of two other Big 12 regular-season titles and as a freshman was on their 2021 national championship team.

It is the second year in a row for a Cougar to be the AP Big 12 player of the year. Jamal Shead, now in the NBA with Toronto, took the honor last season.

A pair of Baylor newcomers, graduate transfer forward Norchad Omier and freshman guard VJ Edgecombe, were second-team picks along with UCF junior Keyshawn Hall, Arizona senior guard Caleb Love, and Iowa State senior guard Curtis Jones.

The AP's individual awards and All-Big 12 honors were determined through voting by media members covering the league.

First team

u-F JT Toppin, Texas Tech, 6-9, 225, So., Dallas.

G LJ Cryer, Houston, 6-1, 200, Gr., Katy, Texas.

C Hunter Dickinson, Kansas, 7-2, 265, Gr., Alexandria, Virginia.

G/F Richie Saunders, BYU, 6-5, 196, Jr., Riverton, Utah.

G Javon Small, West Virginia, 6-3, 190, Sr., South Bend, Indiana.

u-unanimous pick

Second team

G VJ Edgecombe, Baylor, 6-5, 180, Fr, Bimini, Bahamas.

G/F Keyshawn Hall, UCF, 6-7, 235, Jr., Cleveland.

G Caleb Love, Arizona, 6-4, 205, Sr., St. Louis.

G Curtis Jones, Iowa State, 6-4, 195, Sr., Minneapolis.

G/F Norchad Omier, Baylor, 6-7, 244, Gr., Bluefields, Nicaragua.

Individual honors

Coach of the year – Kelvin Sampson, Houston.

Player of the year – LJ Cryer, Houston.

Newcomer of the year – JT Toppin, Texas Tech.

Voting panel

AP All-Big 12 voting panel: Brice Cherry, Waco Tribune-Herald; David Collier, KAMC-TV, Lubbock, Texas; Darnell Dickson, Daily Herald, Provo, Utah; Joseph Durate, Houston Chronicle; Rob Gray, The Cedar Rapids Gazette; Henry Greenstein, Lawrence Journal-World; Sean Keeler, The Denver Post; Matt Murschel, Orlando Sentinel; Bruce Pascoe, Arizona Daily Star; Pat Rooney, Boulder Daily Camera; Mick Shaffer, KSHB 41-TV, Kansas City; Tyler Waldrep Tulsa World; Sean Walker, KSL.com.