A subpar game has never fazed Colorado’s Frida Formann.

Coming off a two-game road trip in wTexas where the Buffaloes lost twice and Formann couldn’t find her shot, she got in a groove early on Wednesday night.

The fifth-year senior scored 22 points to spark the Buffs to an 81-62 rout of Central Florida at the CU Events Center.

CU’s all-time leader in made 3-pointers, Formann went 0-for-9 beyond the arc during the Texas trip, including 0-for-7 in Saturday’s loss at Baylor. On Wednesday, she made a 3 just 26 seconds into the game and finished 5-for-9.

“I think about that, of course,” she said of last week’s struggles. “But I think I’ve also been in that situation multiple times now. Every year, there’s always a slump somewhere. It would be much more fun if there wasn’t, but it happens sometimes. The worst thing I could do is to stop shooting and kind of close down and not believe in myself. That’s not what my team needs. So I know I’ll get it back eventually, because I did the other times.”

The Baylor game was just the sixth time in her career that Formann attempted at least five 3-pointers without making any of them. Each time, she has come back to score at least 13 points, averaging 16.3 points in those bounce-back games.

“She could go 0-for-50 and I expect 51 to go in,” CU head coach JR Payne said before turning to Formann to say, “Don’t go 0-for-50.”

That’s highly unlikely, of course, as Formann has made 287 shots from 3-point range in her career, hitting at a 38% clip.

She set the tone Wednesday by going 3-for-3 in a first quarter that saw the Buffs jump to a 13-0 lead out of the gate.

“When Frida is on balance and she’s shooting it, we expect it to go in, and everyone else should also expect it to go in,” Payne said. “Frida and I have been together so long that she knows in her core how much we believe in her and how much her teammates believe in her, so I think she believes in herself. She works as hard as any player we’ve ever had on her craft, and so she has every right to be confident.”

Led by Formann, the Buffs (11-4, 2-2 Big 12) snapped a two-game skid by racing out to a 31-11 lead after one quarter.

“I tried to kind of instill in us, like, it’s a statement,” Formann said. “A team like that is also just trying to find some success somewhere; like, you can’t let them in a little bit. So I think it was a really good statement from the jump of just like, controlling the pace, playing our game, playing great defense. It was a really fun way to start the game.”

CU led by as many as 34 points midway through the third quarter. A 22-4 UCF run — highlighted by Ally Stedman making five consecutive 3s — sliced CU’s lead to 64-48 early in the fourth, but that was as close as the Knights (7-7, 0-4) would get.

Jade Masogayo had 16 points for the Buffs, Nyamer Diew 10 and Kindyll Wetta eight as all 11 Buffs who saw the court scored. Even JoJo Nworie, playing for the first time in nearly a month, finished with seven points.

“I feel like we bring a lot of energy amongst all of us as a group,” Masogayo said. “We hype each other up, and we just have fun at the end of the day. Seeing JoJo, coming back from injury, smiles, she’s holding up the three, tongue out, everything. It’s a good sign to see. Good vibe.”

The Buffs’ lead was never less than 16 points during the last 32 minutes, even with a sloppy stretch in the third quarter.

“Proud of how we played tonight, proud of our response coming off two difficult losses on the road,” Payne said. “I thought we were pretty resilient. We had a stretch in the third quarter, which was not our best, but I thought we really stuck together and stayed together, which is really important when we’re taking on heat from another team which was good.

“Lots of different production and lots of different contribution from many different players, both starters and from the bench, which continues to be a really, really good thing for us. And any victory conference is a great victory.”

Notable

CU played without freshmen Tabitha Betson and Erin Powell, who are both nursing injuries. … Formann’s five 3-pointers were a season high. … Masogayo passed the 700-point mark for her college career (708). … The Buffs finished with 23 assists on 29 buckets. … Stedman, who finished 5-for-8 on 3s, was 6-for-26 on the season before Wednesday.