Roughly one-third of the way through his rookie season at Colorado, and Josiah Sanders appears to have carved out a unique role.

For the Buffaloes, Sanders has become the instant energy guy off the bench.

The freshman from Denver continued the impressive start to his collegiate career on Saturday, providing several big plays on both ends of the floor as the Buffs used a dominant second half to post an 88-64 win against Texas-San Antonio at the CU Events Center.

“I think for me, it’s just effort,” Sanders said. “Just being able to use the body I’ve been blessed with to get in there and make plays. I think bringing energy is a big thing I can do for this team.”

Sanders scored six of his seven points during CU’s second-half surge and made two key plays to help cap the Buffs’ game-changing 17-3 run, first finding Isaiah Johnson for a fast-break layup before ending the burst with a driving layup.

Sanders recorded three of the Buffs’ season-high 17 offensive rebounds.

“Big-time energy. Josiah’s playing aggressively,” CU head coach Tad Boyle said. “He and Elijah (Malone) both had two or three shots blocked at the rim. He’s got to get away from that. But his energy, and his rebounding, were instrumental for us off the bench (Saturday). Gave us great energy.”

Rebounding rebound

CU posted its largest rebounding margin of the season, outrebounding UTSA 46-32.

Earlier in the week, Boyle called out the frontcourt quartet of Malone, Bangot Dak, Sebastian Rancik and Alon Michaeli for collectively going without an offensive rebound during last week’s loss at Colorado State. Malone responded with three offensive rebounds against UTSA, with Dak, Rancik and Michaeli adding one apiece.

“Much better,” Boyle said. “We were (plus-14). We got like 50% of our misses on offensive rebounds. Which means we got more possessions, and that’s a good thing. We’ve got to do a better job of finishing when we get offensive rebounds.”

Efficient

Not only did point guard Barrington Hargress go 9-for-12 while leading the Buffs with 23 points, matching a career-high with five 3-pointers, but he recorded three assists against one turnover. Through 10 games, Hargress has compiled 47 assists against 13 turnovers for an assist-to-turnover rate of 3.62.

“He hasn’t taken bad shots,” Boyle said. “If you wanted to put his performance (Saturday), and really all year, in one word, it would be efficient. He was extremely efficient offensively. He’s obviously been a great assist-to-turnover ratio guy for us all year. He’s been a rock-solid defender. He does a lot of things to help this team.”

It was Hargress’ first 20-point game with the Buffs and the 25th of his career.

Notable

Sanders’ No. 5 jersey was torn during the second half, forcing him to finish the game with No. 14. … Dak went four consecutive games without a turnover before committing one early in the first half against UTSA. Dating back to his previous turnover against UC Davis on Nov. 21, Dak played 128 minutes, 7 seconds between turnovers. … After shooting .622 in the second half, CU has shot at least 60% in the second half in six of 10 games. … CU’s 9-1 mark is the program’s best 10-game start since the 2015-16 team, which also was 9-1 through 10 games. … UTSA starting guard Austin Nunez finished 0-for-4. Including two games against CU during his freshman season at Arizona State, Nunez is 1-for-13 in three career games against the Buffs.