For more than a decade, this is what Ricardo Patton has known in Allen Fieldhouse. Why change now?

The Colorado University basketball coach is pretty much used to traveling to Kansas University, getting pasted and flying home. Saturday’s 97-74 loss was right on cue – a fitting swan song for a coach who never saw anything but bad stuff in his 12 trips to Lawrence.

Patton is in his final season in charge of the Buffaloes, announcing in the preseason he wouldn’t be back in 2007-08. The curious move no doubt will affect recruiting, and if CU’s first 17 games are any indication, it couldn’t have helped the current roster, either.

Colorado (5-12 overall, 1-6 Big 12) appeared misaligned and sloppy, seemingly bracing for defeat all day. Free throws clanked, passes were terribly timed and turnovers ran rampant – 30 in all, nearly a school record.

Patton is 1-22 against Kansas in his CU career. Many of those losses unfolded in a painfully similar fashion.

“I don’t know if you can beat a bad team with 30 empty possessions,” Patton said. “You certainly can’t beat a good team.”

The lone bright spot was junior Richard Roby, who had another fantastic day finishing baskets. Perhaps Colorado’s lone player with NBA chances, Roby had 30 points in a variety of ways. He hit three three-pointers, finished almost all of his fast breaks and withstood solid defense by Brandon Rush to get back on track after four bad shooting games in which he had combined to hit 15 of 50 shots.

But wait. Roby stained the effort by committing eight turnovers all by himself. The biggest blunder occurred with KU up 63-54 with 11:20 left.

It was a simple pass in the backcourt to Xavier Silas, but KU’s Mario Chalmers jumped right in front of it for the steal. Rather than allow the easy breakaway, Silas grabbed Chalmers and was whistled for an intentional foul.

“I thought Xavier was going to come more toward the ball,” Roby said. “It was just a little miscommunication between me and him.”

With a big price. Chalmers dropped both his free throws, and KU scored a three-pointer on the ensuing possession. Colorado was toast.

That play was just another example of frequent brain cramping by CU players this season, though Patton refused to believe that the program’s uncertainty with him leaving had anything to do with it.

“Regardless of whether I step down before or whether I step down or get fired at the end, we still have eight freshmen,” Patton said. “The decision had nothing to do with the maturity of my team.”

This much is known: Patton is 0-for-his-career in Allen Fieldhouse, and Colorado’s annual trip to Lawrence has turned up empty for each of the last 24 years.

In Patton’s tenure, the Buffalos have given up an average of 91.2 points per game to Kansas in Lawrence. Saturday’s 97-point outburst by the Jayhawks was true to form – just as Patton was destined to finish a rotten career on KU’s home floor.

“It’s been great to be able to coach in this arena,” Patton said. “Certainly we would’ve liked to have beaten them a little more often.”

Or at least once.