By no means is RJ Smith the only player struggling through the team-wide frustrations plaguing the Colorado men’s basketball team.

Way back on Nov. 26, during an upset of two-time defending champion UConn at the Maui Invitational that already seems like some unbelievable tropical mirage, Smith made all three of his shot attempts, two of them from long range, and added three assists with only one turnover.

Smith later said putting together a game like that against an opponent like UConn spurred his confidence, and it showed on the floor. Smith carried that confidence through CU’s upset bid in the Big 12 opener against Iowa State, going 3-for-6 from the arc with a career-high 14 points.

That near-miss against ISU didn’t dispel the notion Colorado could surpass its 15th-place projection in the 16-team Big 12. Yet little has gone right for Smith and the rest of the Buffs since. Mired in a 10-game losing streak and still winless in conference play halfway through the Big 12 schedule, CU will take another shot at breaking through on Wednesday night at Utah.

“I wish confidence was something I could go to the store and buy for (Smith). He’s got to get it,” CU head coach Tad Boyle said. “He’s got to get in the gym. He’s got to get in the weight room. He’s got to believe in himself. Obviously I still believe in RJ or I wouldn’t be playing him. I’ve coached players that have a lot of confidence. I’ve coached some players that have very little confidence and some in between. I just tell every player, ‘I’ve got belief in you. You’ve got to believe in yourself.’

“I think he’s a little frustrated with his jump shot not going in, so that’s affected the rest of his game. Because he’s not the same defender that he once was. He’s not playing with the same energy and bounce in his step that he once was. He’s not playing with the same body language that he did earlier. And the only difference is that his jump shot’s not going in.”

Even with a one-point loss at Central Florida, the Buffs have lost their five true road games by an average of 11.4 points. The Buffs and Utah profile similarly, with CU actually owning better offensive numbers in Big 12 play in scoring, field goal percentage and 3-point percentage. The Buffs still average a Big 12-most 16.2 turnovers per game in conference play, but the Utes aren’t too far behind at 14.6, the fourth-most in the league.Defensively, though, the Utes have been far superior. Through Monday, Utah’s defensive field goal percentage of .424 ranked sixth in Big 12 games.

The Buffs head to Salt Lake City with the longest winless start to a conference schedule since the 1985-86 team went 0-14 in the Big Eight. It’s the program’s longest losing streak since the Buffs lost the final 12 games of 2008-09. If the Buffs return to Boulder with the losing streak still intact, their next two games are at home on Saturday at No. 5 Houston, followed by a visit to No. 16 Kansas.

“All of our players, if they just play at the level of their potential we’ll be fine. But we’re not. As a group, or individual,” Boyle said. “They’ve got a lot of length on their team. We’ve got a lot of length on our team. They run a lot of the same offensive actions that we run. Very similar team to us offensively in that they sometimes struggle to take care of the ball. Defensively, they’re better than us for sure.”