KJ Simpson won a scoring duel over Jaylon Tyson as Colorado avenged a loss to California with an 88-78 triumph on Wednesday night in Boulder, Colo.
Simpson, the third-leading scorer in the Pac-12, finished with a game-high 27 points and Tristan da Silva had 22 for the Buffaloes (19-9, 10-7 Pac-12).
Javon Ruffin buried consecutive 3-pointers in a key second-half sequence to help Colorado earn its third win in a row.
Tyson, second in the conference in scoring, paced the Golden Bears (13-16, 9-9) with 25 points. Cal saw its three-game winning streak end.
Having lost 82-78 to Cal in Berkeley, Calif., on Jan. 10, Colorado led by as many as 16 points in the rematch before the Golden Bears rode a second-half surge by Tyson to pull within 58-53 with 12:56 to go.
The margin was just eight points four minutes later before Ruffin, scoreless at that stage, converted assists from J’Vonne Hadley and Simpson into 3-pointers in an 8-2 burst that left the visitors in the dust for good.
Both Simpson, who had a game-high eight assists, and Tyson, who led Cal with four assists, went over their scoring averages in the head-to-head duel. Tyson came into the game averaging 20.1 points while Simpson was averaging 19.6. In their last meeting, Tyson scored 30 and Simpson was held to 12.
Simpson got plenty of support from da Silva, who contributed nine points and an assist to a 15-3 burst that opened a 33-19 first-half advantage.
Hadley totaled 13 points while Eddie Lampkin Jr. collected a team-high eight rebounds to complement 12 points for the Buffaloes, who outshot Cal 50 percent to 42 percent.
Fardaws Aimaq led all rebounders with 11 and had 11 points and four blocks for the Golden Bears, while Keonte Kennedy added 13 points and Jalen Celestine put up 11.
–Field Level Media
