After two uncharacteristically poor shooting nights to begin his first season in Boulder, forward Andrej Jakimovski dropped 17 points in Colorado men’s basketball’s 83-53 win over Cal State Fullerton on Wednesday.
Jakimovski, a Washington State transfer, made four 3-pointers in the first half and finished 6-for-12 from the CU Events Center floor.
“My main focus is on defense, rebound, take care of the ball and then take good shots,” Jakimovski said. “I think all the shots that I took were great shots. My teammates were great at finding me open. We moved the ball really good this game. We had 22 assists on 30 field goals, which is awesome.”
CU head coach Tad Boyle was also pleased to see Jakimovski find his shooting rhythm.
“It’s nice to see Andrej come out and make a few to get himself going because we’ve been struggling from 3 a little bit,” Boyle said.
Jakimovski and the Buffs improved to 3-0 following their most complete performance of the young season.
On a night in which no Buff played more than 22 minutes, point guard Julian Hammond III and freshman forward Sebastian Rancik followed Jakimovski with 11 points each. Guard Javon Ruffin recorded five of Colorado’s season-high 22 assists and forward Assane Diop tallied eight rebounds.
Defensively, Colorado held Cal State Fullerton to 31% from the field and 12% from deep.
“We knew that coming in they’re more of an ISO (isolation) type of team,” Hammond said. “We had to focus on guarding the ball because we know they run their actions and we knew their actions. Coach (Danny) Manning did a great job with the scout and put us in great positions.”
Up next, Colorado will host Harvard on Sunday at noon MT (ESPN+).
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