BOULDER, Colo. – Colorado guard Richard Roby scored a team-high 24 points to end the regular season, but afterward, he preferred to talk about the block that preserved the victory for his team.

Roby rejected Rahshon Clark’s three-point attempt in the final seconds as Colorado survived a scare to beat Iowa State 84-82 Saturday night.

“That was the game,” said Roby, who also had seven rebounds and five assists. “Clark had already hit a 3-pointer on me and I couldn’t afford for him to beat me again.”

“That’s the kind of player he is,” Colorado coach Ricardo Patton said of Roby. “He didn’t have a particularly good shooting night, but he gave us so many other things.

Roby finished 7-for-18 shooting. Chris Copeland added 18 points on 6-for-12 shooting with nine rebounds.

The Buffaloes (19-8, 9-7 Big 12 Conference), who let a 16-point halftime lead slip away, finished fifth place in the Big 12 with the win and assured themselves the No. 5 seed in the conference tournament next week.

“We were reluctant at the start of the second half,” Roby said. “We thought the game was over.”

Curtis Stinson led Iowa State (16-13, 6-10) with 24 points. Will Blalock had 17 as the Cyclones lost their fifth straight road game.

Leading by 16 at the break, Colorado got two free throws from Jayson Obazuaye but then went scoreless for four and a half minutes while Clark and Blalock were hitting a 3-pointer each as part of a 15-0 run by Iowa State.

“Sometimes we make it tough on ourselves,” Patton said of the blown leads. “In this case you have to give Iowa State some of the credit because they hit some incredible shots.”

Iowa State coach Wayne Morgan saw his team’s run another way.

“I thought my guys played with incredible heart, incredible effort and just really played together in the second half,” Morgan said. “They erased a big part of the deficit in the first four minutes of the second half and we actually took the lead for a little bit.”

Roby ended the drought before Iowa State went on a 9-0 run to take the lead, 57-53. But after Blalock’s basket made it 61-59, Roby’s three-point play capped a 12-2 run for the Buffaloes that put them up 71-63.

The Cyclones got as close as 83-82 on Clark’s 3-pointer with under five seconds left but couldn’t get any shots to fall at the end.

“We felt our defensive intensity wasn’t there like we should have had it,” Stinson said. In the second half we came up with it and we just played hard the whole 20 minutes.”

Colorado took a 46-30 lead into intermission. The Buffaloes overcame a 10-0 run by the Cyclones over the final 6:58 of the half.

Colorado surpassed its single-season team record of 222 3-pointers and finished with 232 for the regular season.