First and foremost, KJ Simpson wants it clear he’s offering no excuses for his late-season slump.

Yet it’s equally true that for Colorado’s sophomore point guard, there were reasons behind the late slide.

On Jan. 5, Simpson missed Colorado’s home win against Oregon due to a combination of injury and illness. Simpson turned his ankle late in the Buffaloes’ previous game, when he nearly single-handedly saved CU from what nonetheless was an ugly loss at California. That ankle was never quite the same again.

There also was a stomach bug that knocked Simpson down that first week in January, but soon afterward he found himself playing through lethargic, cold-like symptoms that he couldn’t shake. Simpson eventually missed the final five games after finally being diagnosed with mono.

“I didn’t really want to make any excuses for how I was playing, but I wasn’t really 100%,” Simpson said. “The ankle, it’s back to normal now, but it took a long route to get there during the second half of the season. I got a stomach flu, or I think it was food poisoning. Then I got mono but I didn’t know what it was at first. I kept playing through it. I didn’t want to make no excuses. I found out I had that and I’d been playing with it for a couple weeks. It was rough.

“I’m not one to make excuses. I’m not one to go out there and not give it my all, even if I wasn’t feeling my best. But yeah, I wasn’t 100%.”

Prior to the missed game against Oregon, Simpson was shooting .450 overall with a .354 mark on 3-pointers. He recorded six 20-point games in those first 15 outings, including his first career double-double in CU’s Nov. 13 upset of Tennessee (23 points, 10 rebounds) and his first career 30-point game in an upset of then-No. 24 Texas A&M.

In his final 14 games following the missed Oregon game, however, Simpson shot .330 overall and just .154 (8-for-52) on 3-pointers. Simpson still had his moments — like a 21-point, seven-assist performance in a home win against Stanford — but that was Simpson’s only 20-point effort in the final 14 games. Even his assist-to-turnover rate tumbled, going from 1.58 in the first 15 games to 1.42 in the final 14.

Simpson still earned second team All-Pac-12 honors after averaging 15.9 points and 3.8 assists, but he missed the final game of the regular season, plus two games apiece in the Pac-12 tournament and the NIT. The Buffs went 3-2 in those games.

“It was definitely frustrating. You kind of work your way towards the whole season. That’s kind of what the goal is,” Simpson said. “I kind of felt like I couldn’t help my guys. I couldn’t be out there practicing with them, be on the court with them, especially when they needed me. I still did what I could to contribute, but it was frustrating.”

As the Buffs go through spring workouts to start their offseason program, Simpson says he’s finally at full strength — health-wise and with his ankle. It has been less than a month since he could only watch as CU’s season came to an end with a home loss against Utah Valley in the second round of the NIT. Yet already a buzz is building around a Buffs team that lost Lawson Lovering, Nique Clifford and Quincy Allen to the transfer portal, while adding TCU transfer Eddie Lampkin Jr. and awaiting the arrival of prized incoming freshman Cody Williams.

“You can only look forward,” Simpson said. “You can’t really dwell on the past. All the buzz and the difference that in a couple weeks has happened, it’s crazy how quickly it switches up. It’s going to be a completely different team than last year.”