Losers on three of the previous six Saturdays, Arizona was slipping quickly down that path again this time. Literally.

Four turnovers fell out of the Wildcats’ hands in the first two minutes of their eventual 78-68 win over Colorado on Saturday, allowing an opponent that is sub-.500 in the Pac-12 to take an early five-point lead at McKale Center.

That’s when Cedric Henderson had seen enough.

So with Arizona down 7-2, Henderson drove and elevated with a not-always-seen fierceness for a dunk from the right side. The shot didn’t go in, but Henderson drew a foul from Colorado’s Tristan da Silva and made two free throws.

β€œHonestly, I was just getting mad,” Henderson said. β€œWe turned the ball over (four) times. We weren’t locked in to start the game off and something had to give. Somebody had to give a spark and I thought maybe I could try it.”

The Wildcats did have a fifth turnover after Henderson’s free throws, one that helped the Buffs take an 18-6 lead but Henderson had sent a message β€” to Colorado and maybe to his teammates, who didn’t commit a sixth turnover until the second half.

Arizona guard Cedric Henderson Jr. drops a dunk in the middle of the Colorado defense during the second half in their Pac-12 game at McKale Center on Feb. 18, 2023.

That allowed things to go back to normal for the Wildcats. That is, it allowed UA to outscore Colorado 40-24 in the paint, thanks to another career night from center Oumar Ballo.

While forward Azuolas Tubelis rebounded somewhat from two straight foul-plagued games with 13 points, Ballo was dominant, collecting 18 points and a career-high 16 rebounds.

He, too, appeared a little ticked off with that opening.

β€œWe just had a slow start,” Ballo said. β€œWe have to get ourselves together and play as a team and do what we usually do.”

In the end, the Wildcats still picked up a win that moved them to 24-4 overall and 13-4 in the Pac-12 while Colorado dropped to 15-13 and 7-10.

But UA had early turnover troubles at the beginning of both halves and, even though they went ahead by as many as 17 points in the second half, the Wildcats never led convincingly enough to prompt UA coach Tommy Lloyd to go deeper than his usual top seven guys.

In other words, Lloyd wasn’t real happy either.

β€œWe’ve got to start out better than that,” Lloyd said. β€œWe didn’t play great tonight by any stretch and Colorado gets some credit for that. Our guys have to take some accountability for that. We’ve got to play better. We’ve got to play cleaner. We’ve got to play tougher. We’ve got to play smarter.”

At times, they did. Times that varied wildly throughout the game.

Arizona guard Kylan Boswell hangs on the rim after polishing off a steal with a dunk against Colorado in the first half of their Pac-12 game at McKale Center on Feb. 18, 2023. Boswell earned a technical on the play.

Although Tubelis made a layup on Arizona’s first possession of the game, the Wildcats turned the ball over on each of their next four possessions β€” Kriisa committed the first two turnovers and Tubelis the second two. At the end of that spell, Colorado had taken its 7-2 lead, having scored five points off the turnovers, while Lloyd’s head began to spin.

β€œThe early ones that seem crazy to me,” Lloyd said. β€œI don’t know what you attribute them to. Casualness, maybe. We’ll take a look at them and we’ll evaluate them. We had some turnovers early; we had some turnovers late. And not that you ever want to turn the ball over, but I think you definitely don’t want to turn it over early and you don’t want to turn it over late.

β€œLet’s get off to a good start. Let’s finish strong. Those two things.”

The Wildcats’ rough start kept going, too. Down 16-6 after a 3-pointer from da Silva less than four minutes into the game, the Wildcats’ fifth turnover was from Ballo, leading to a 17-foot jumper by Colorado center Lawson Lovering.

That gave CU a 18-6 lead before Arizona finally calmed down. The Wildcats went on a 12-0 run to tie the game at 18 and began to pull ahead over the final five minutes, with Ballo putting back a blocked shot by Henderson just before the halftime buzzer for the final halftime margin.

Arizona did not commit another turnover before halftime, when they took a 46-34 lead, but then ran into turnover trouble again in the second half.

Early in the second half, Tubelis was whistled for a three-second violation, which led to a 3-pointer from Colorado’s Nique Clifford, while a pass from Kriisa became a turnover that led to a dunk by Colorado’s Lawson Lovering.

Oumar Ballo recorded 18 points and a career-high 16 rebounds, while Cedric Henderson had 15 points, in No. 8 Arizona's 78-68 win over Colorado on Saturday at McKale Center.

That cut the Wildcats’ lead to 46-39 just 70 seconds into the second half. While the Wildcats recovered again, going on to take leads of up to 17 points, they never did put the Buffaloes away.

Because of, again, turnovers. Arizona had three more turnovers β€” from Tubelis, Ballo and Kriisa β€” over the final 2:02 of the game while Colorado cut its lead from 15 to 10.

All together, Colorado scored 24 points off UA’s 14 turnovers, allowing the Buffaloes to stay competitive despite shooting just 38.7% from the field.

All that left Lloyd wondering after the game about that favorable placement in the NCAA Tournament that the selection committee gave Arizona earlier Saturday during its annual early reveal. As of Saturday, the committee said it had the Wildcats as the sixth overall seed, putting them as the No. 2 seed in the West Region.

That placement was two overall spots ahead of UCLA, which was handed a tentative No. 2 seed in the East even though the Bruins are two games ahead of the Wildcats in the Pac-12 loss column.

β€œIt’s kind of meaningless,” Lloyd said of the early seeding reveal. β€œAnd I didn’t feel like we played like that team tonight.”

Zeke Nnaji, the former Pac-12 Freshman of the Year, was inducted into the McKale Center Ring of Honor on Saturday.

Become a #ThisIsTucson member! Your contribution helps our team bring you stories that keep you connected to the community. Become a member today.

Contact sports reporter Bruce Pascoe at bpascoe@tucson.com. On Twitter:

@brucepascoe