Luke O’Brien certainly wasn’t the only Buffaloes player embarrassed by his performance at California last week.

It certainly lit a fuse, however.

Colorado’s reserve forward has enjoyed a career-best run over the past month with the lone exception, for both O’Brien and the team, striking with the jarring jolt of bucket of ice water in a loss at Cal on New Year’s Eve.

O’Brien, also like the Buffs in general, got back on track during CU’s home sweep of the Oregon schools, recording the two best rebounding totals of his career as the Buffs put together a pair of smothering defensive efforts.

With the win, CU moved back to .500 within the Pac-12 Conference, yet the Buffs (11-6, 3-3) have lost two of their three conference road games against teams expected to finish at the back end of the Pac-12 standings in Cal and Washington. If the Buffs hope to make a Pac-12 push they will have to get results against more formidable foes on the road, a challenge that begins this week with a two-game swing through Los Angeles that tips off on Thursday night at USC (7 p.m. MT, Pac-12 Network).

“We’ve got to build on it, obviously. We celebrate this and then we go right back to work,” O’Brien said. “We had a really tough week of practice this week, and I know we’re going to have that on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday. We just can’t get complacent. That was the biggest issue for us. We beat teams like Tennessee and we’re like, ‘Oh, we’re good.’ And then we play UMass and lose. So we can’t get complacent with these Oregon wins. We know USC and UCLA are huge.”

Despite missing two mid-December games due to an injury, O’Brien has put together his most consistent stretch of play since joining the Buffs out of Columbine High School.

After getting shut out on the boards at Cal, O’Brien recorded a career-best 11 rebounds during Thursday’s win against Oregon. He added nine more on Saturday against Oregon State. Prior to this week, O’Brien’s previous top rebounding total was eight in last year’s home date against Oregon State.

The burst improved O’Brien’s season rebounding average to 4.0. Over his past eight games he is averaging 5.5 per game, and that includes the zero-rebound game at Cal. O’Brien also has started turning around his shooting touch. After going 0-for-3 on 3-pointers on Dec. 8 against Colorado State, O’Brien’s 3-point percentage bottomed out at .111 (2-for-18). In his past five games O’Brien has gone 5-for-10, raising that season percentage to .250.

“At Cal I had zero rebounds, and I took that very personal,” O’Brien said. “I pride myself on rebounding offensively and defensively. (Last) week in practice, that’s what I did. I was boxing out. Some of the rebounds came to me, but that’s been a very big focal point for me this year.”

CU held both Oregon and Oregon State under 45 points — the combined 83 points allowed was the fewest surrendered by the Buffs in consecutive conference games since the 1948-49 season — yet head coach Tad Boyle cautioned the road ahead is about far more difficult. Of CU’s seven remaining road games, six are against the six teams that boast winning records so far in Pac-12 play.

“It gets harder and harder to win games as conference play goes,” Boyle said. “You go on the road, you’re playing the top half of the league. We’ve not been playing the top half of the league. So we’ve got that coming. We’ll see what we’re made of when we go to L.A.”