The season is slipping away for the Stanford men's basketball team, much like Wednesday's game with Colorado that came down the final ticks of the clock before the Cardinal fell, 65-63.

It was Stanford's third straight loss and fourth setback in five games in February. The Cardinal is 7-9 in the Pac-12 Conference and 16-13 overall.

Andre Roberson scored a career-high 24 points and helped spark an 18-2 second-half run to help the Buffaloes (9-6, 19-8) sweep Stanford this season after five straight losses to the Cardinal.

Andy Brown matched his career high with 17 points while Dwight Powell added 12 for Stanford.

Powell nearly pushed the game into overtime after driving around Roberson and dunking the ball on the game's final play, but officials reviewed television replays and ruled that time expired before Powell's bucket.

"I thought Dwight's move was great," said Stanford coach Johnny Dawkins. "He caught the ball where we thought he'd catch the ball. I thought he'd have a chance to go ahead and get a strong finish, but the fact that he caught it a little bit further out, he got bumped on the catch, and by the time he turned around, time was being eaten up. He still did a great job of getting to the basket. He should have just laid the ball up."

Colorado had taken a five-point lead with 15.1 seconds left on Roberson's two free throws. Brown, however, drained a three-pointer with seven seconds left and the Buffaloes' Spencer Dinwiddie missed a free throw to set up Stanford's final attempt at victory.

"We fought hard against a good basketball team and had a chance to win the game," said Dawkins. "We went up by 10 points, had a chance to go up 13, with a missed three. They came down and I thought, as fast as we were able to gain that margin, they were able to erase it.

"A lot of it was transition. They were able to get out in transition through passing it long, through pushing it, and getting into our paint early, and I think they were able to cut into our margin to make it a two-point game very quickly. At that point, it was a basketball game. They went up by five or so, and we kept fighting and we were able to cut the lead, and we had a chance to tie or win it at the end."

The Buffaloes shot 42.9 percent compared to the Cardinal's 39.0 percent. Colorado was 13-17 from the foul line while Stanford was 8-11.

Stanford took a 32-31 lead into halftime despite holding its largest lead of 15-5 at the 12:59 mark of the first half.

Colorado's biggest second-half lead was 61-55 with 3:22 remaining before Stanford chipped away at the deficit.

"This one hurts bad," said Brown. "Anytime you lose at the buzzer, it's never a good thing, but all the plays leading up to that were the cause of it, so we can't look at it and say it was the last play's fault, because it's not.

"You know, we built some good leads on them and our defense just didn't hold up. I mean, we were up by 10 and then all of a sudden they cut it to two in about a minute, minute and a half. We can't let that happen. When we get a lead we have to keep on building on those, and we didn't do that tonight."

Entering the game, Stanford had received a double-double from either Josh Huestis or Powell in eight straight contests. Huestis finished with four points and nine rebounds while Powell added 12 points and seven boards.

Stanford will host Utah on Sunday at 2 p.m. Cardinal senior Gabriel Harris will be honored in a pregame tribute.

— Palo Alto Online Sports

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