The Colorado Buffaloes basketball team lost to Gembo BBC Borgerhout of Belgium, 88-86, on Sunday night. It was nearly an incredible come-from-behind victory for Colorado, who had solely played freshman in the exhibition game.
The Pac-12 champions are on a 10-day, five-game tour of Europe that has included games against AMW France Elite and Optima Ghent of Belgium, with Sunday's game against Gembo BBC included to provide experience for the underclassmen on the team.
Down 84-74 with a minute remaining in the game following back-to-back three pointers by Gembo BBC, the Buffaloes fought back with Kevin Nelson providing four quick points to close the game 86-83 with 16.6 remaining. CU would force a turnover on the ensuing possession but Josh Scott would miss the potentially tying shot, allowing Gembo to extend the lead with two last-second free throws.
Gembo BBC was the Belgian Division II champions in 2011-12 and put a much more experience team on the court against Colorado, who aimed to get some of their rather inexperience players some valuable game time against a good team.
"It gave us a great-look-into our freshmen class that are not normally in the rotation and getting them some minutes, so I thought the way we competed and lose by two to a very quality team that I think is better than the team we beat last night (Sat., Aug. 18), it gives us a lot of things to build on. The thing about this trip, is you want to learn as much as you can about your young players and we had a chance to do that today."
CU will wrap up their exhibition tour with a game against the Rotterdam Challengers on Monday.
For more updates on the Buffs, check out The Ralphie Report.