KANSAS CITY – Colorado shot 61% in the second half to rally from a 13-point first half deficit and upset eighth-seeded West Virginia 67-60 in a Big 12 Tournament second-round game at T-Mobile Center in Kansas City this afternoon.

The 16^th-seeded Buffaloes, who upset TCU yesterday, used a strong second-half defensive performance for a second straight day to earn a spot in the quarterfinals against top-seeded Houston tomorrow afternoon.

"We're certainly disappointed with the loss," West Virginia coach Darian DeVries said afterward.

The game came unglued for the Mountaineers with nine minutes to go after K.J. Tenner's short jumper gave them a 46-37 lead.

WVU went scoreless for five minutes at the same time Colorado went inside to senior center Elijah Malone on three consecutive possessions for baskets. Malone scored 10 of his 14 team-leading points during a four-minute span that helped turn that deficit into a six-point Buffalo lead.

After Tenner's basket, West Virginia's only field goals were a Toby Okani alley oop dunk, a Javon Small jumper and two Small 3s late in the game when the Mountaineers were trying to play catch-up.

Colorado (14-19) made seven of its final nine field goal attempts, turned the Mountaineers over 11 times in the second half and outscored West Virginia's bench 38 to 12.

"I thought they went to a little more floppy action in the second half, and were able to throw it inside," DeVries said. "They've been pretty good all year when you bring a double team, kicking it out for open 3s. A little bit of foul trouble probably played a part in it, and we weren't quite as aggressive defensively maybe as we needed to be.

"We went and brought help one time and gave away a kickout 3, so, we were kind of in a tough spot with whether to come or not to come, but they did a good job of taking advantage of that," he added.

In addition to Malone's 14, R.J. Smith contributed 13, including a couple of critical baskets late when Colorado was making its run.

Andrej Jakimovski added 11, nine of those coming in the first half.

Small's 23 points led all scorers. He finished seven of 15 from the floor, including four of 11 from 3, and was five of six from the free throw line.

Okani was the only other Mountaineer player to reach double figures with 11 points.

Jakimovski began the game with a basket on the opening possession, but after that, first-half baskets were hard to come by for both teams.

West Virginia got most of its first-half scoring in the first 12 minutes to build a 13-point lead before an eight-minute field goal drought helped the Buffaloes claw back into the game. 

WVU's lone bucket was Okani's short jumper with 2:24 remaining.

Jakimovski did most of his first-half scoring against the much smaller Joseph Yesufu, tallying nine points, including a wing 3 with 1:23 left in the half. 

That was the final field goal by either team before intermission.

West Virginia drops to 19-13 with the loss and will now await its postseason fate on Sunday.

"The biggest thing for us is we're going to have another opportunity to play," DeVries said. "We're going to have a chance to go back, regroup, and reset things and focus on some of the things we need to clean up and come back and get our minds right"

The Mountaineers have been comfortably in the NCAA Tournament in all bracket projections leading up to today's action.