photo by: AP Photo/David Zalubowski

Kansas guard Melvin Council Jr. reacts after scoring four straight points against Colorado in the second half of an NCAA college basketball game Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026, in Boulder, Colo.

BOULDER, Colo. — Melvin Council Jr. was just trying to get back on defense.

The Jayhawks were clinging desperately to a one-point lead on Tuesday night against Colorado when Bryson Tiller slapped away a potential go-ahead putback by Alon Michaeli. The ball had caromed hard off the backboard to Council, who zoomed down the court in about four seconds and dropped in a layup over Isaiah Johnson to make it 62-59.

But he had no designs on making any other grand play as he prepared to run back down the court. His hands, however, were still up, and Sebastian Rancik tossed the ensuing inbounds pass directly into his right arm.

“That’s really what it was,” Council said. “I wasn’t even thinking about stealing it or not.”

As the aggrieved Rancik, Johnson and Barrington Hargress gestured wildly toward the nearby official — suggesting their apparent belief that Council was out of bounds when the pass hit him — the KU guard went around them for another layup.

The Buffaloes never really recovered, even after the ensuing timeout with just under five minutes to go. They scored one point in the next four minutes as KU went ahead by as many as 11 and ultimately won 75-69.

“I feel like that kind of won the game for us, kind of set the energy, and yeah, that’s Melvin,” senior forward Tre White said.

Council finished the game with a team-high 18 points on 7-for-13 shooting to go with seven rebounds. He did much of his best work late in the game, as per usual.

“Melvin was great,” acting head coach Jacque Vaughn said. “He’s done that before for us, really just getting in his head that he’s not going to allow us to lose, and the plays that he made gave us some momentum. He got to the rim, he was aggressive, and he gave us life when he needed it.”

As aghast as the vociferously booing CU fans may have been that Council wasn’t called out of bounds at a pivotal moment, the Buffaloes themselves took the high road postgame.

“(Council) made a good play, I would say, defensively,” Johnson said. “The ref didn’t call it, so it was a great play on him, and he finished the layup. Happens.”

“(Head coach Tad Boyle)’s never going to look at us and ask the refs for any kind of mercy,” Hargress said. “Whatever happens in between those lines is what happens, and we got to find a way to win the game in between there. I saw the play, I thought it wasn’t allowed, but at the end of the day, whatever happens between those lines, we got to get the job done.”

Boyle, a former KU basketball player in his 16th season at the helm of the Colorado program, called the sequence “the deciding factor of the game.”

“Look, part of it is we didn’t finish in our transition,” he added. “I said this out there, KU was the better transition team on offense and defense. We got numbers, we got (an) advantage break, and we don’t score, and they got an advantage break and they do score, and that play that you referred to happens. That’s a big turning point, momentum shift, and we never quite recovered from that.”

He said it was emblematic of a portion of the year in which breaks haven’t gone CU’s way, citing also a banked-in 3-pointer in their recent loss to West Virginia and another one by Darryn Peterson in the final minutes of Tuesday’s contest.

“Yeah, I’m frustrated,” he said.

A win by Colorado could have put both teams at 3-3 in Big 12 play; instead, in large part due to Council’s consecutive buckets, the Buffaloes find themselves 2-4 and the Jayhawks 4-2.

The Buffaloes will host UCF on Saturday afternoon. For KU, it’s back out on the road to Kansas State on Saturday night.