The Colorado men’s basketball team could just as easily be 4-0.

The Buffaloes aren’t, though, and will look to end a frustrating start to the return season in the Big 12 Conference in a Wednesday night home date against the league’s only other 0-4 club, Cincinnati.

One consistent theme in most of those losses has been an inability to execute at crunch time.

Against then-No. 3 Iowa State in the Big 12 opener, CU used a second-half surge to take a five-point lead midway through and trailed by just one point with 4 minutes, 59 seconds remaining. The Cyclones outscored CU 15-6 the rest of the way.

The Buffs didn’t show up while falling to 0-2 with a lopsided loss at Arizona State, but late-game execution has cost CU in each of the past two games. Despite finishing with a season-high 22 turnovers at Central Florida, the Buffs still led by three points and had the ball with less than 3 minutes remaining but still managed to lose even though they didn’t allow a field goal the rest of the way.

It was a similar story on Sunday against West Virginia. CU cut what had been a 14-point deficit down to two points on five separate occasions but couldn’t get any closer.

“Good players make plays down the stretch,” CU head coach Tad Boyle said following Sunday’s defeat. “How often did I sit here and talk about McKinley Wright making plays down the stretch to help us win a game? Guess what? McKinley Wright is not in our uniform. That’s what good players do. They make plays when plays need to be made. They finish at the rim.

“Close ain’t good enough. You’ve got to get the job done, and we didn’t get the job done. That’s on me. That’s not on our players, it’s on me. I’ll take it. I signed their scholarship agreements. It’s on me.”

Weekly honors

Iowa State swept the latest Big 12 weekly honors announced on Monday, with Curtis Jones winning the player of the week award and Joshua Jefferson adding another newcomer of the week award.

Jones was the league’s leading scorer last week, averaging 24.5 points in wins against Utah and Texas Tech. Jones went 10-for-17 with 23 points against Utah and scored 26 in an overtime win against Texas Tech. Jefferson won the newcomer honor for the fourth time in five weeks after scoring 17 points in each of ISU’s victories.

After a loss last week by former No. 1 Tennessee, Iowa State moved up one spot to No. 2 in this week’s Associated Press Top 25, with Auburn taking over the top spot.

Notable

West Virginia, which lost by 19 points at home against Arizona prior to defeating the Buffs, dropped out of this week’s Top 25. … Among the Big 12’s other ranked teams, No. 9 Kansas and No. 10 Houston both moved up two spots, while Baylor re-entered the poll at No. 25. … The Big 12 NET rankings to start the week: Houston (3), Iowa State (6), Kansas (8), Arizona (16), Texas Tech (19), Baylor (20), West Virginia (29), Cincinnati (41), BYU (48), Arizona State (55), TCU (73), Utah (74), UCF (78), Colorado (87), Oklahoma State (115) and Kansas State (132). … CU’s 20 field goals against West Virginia matched a season-low. The Buffs also had just 20 field goals in a loss against Michigan State on Nov. 25.