Saturday was set up to be one of the top highlights of BYU’s season.

Instead, the Cougars’ 90-86 overtime victory against Colorado will ultimately be remembered for its most gut-wrenching moment.

BYU was heavily favored against the visiting Buffaloes, its lowest-rated remaining opponent of the regular season. Additionally, Jimmer Fredette would have his No. 32 jersey retired at halftime, with the sold out Marriott Center crowd all donning replica Fredette jerseys of their own and creating an electric, deafening environment prior to tipoff.

But less than a minute into the contest, disaster struck.

BYU star Richie Saunders, attempting a jump pass as he soared out of bounds, planted his right foot awkwardly upon landing and took a hard fall, immediately clutching his right knee as he lay in pain.

Saunders remained on the ground for a while before being helped up, needing assistance for the beginning of his walk back to the locker room before eventually walking out under his own power.

Though he did give a double thumbs up to fans as he left the floor, Saunders never returned to the BYU bench, let alone the game, with his wife and parents being summoned back into the locker room to see him.

“I think it sucked the life out the gym, if I’m being honest,” BYU head coach Kevin Young said of Saunders’ injury, adding that he did not have an update regarding the senior star’s status moving forward.

“You never want to see an injury to any player, but definitely not to someone who’s the heart and soul of our team and bleeds BYU blue.”

Losing Saunders so early in the game clearly affected the Cougars, who could never pull away from Colorado and squandered a late lead to go to overtime.

“He’s our hardest worker, super talented player, so I mean, hopefully we get him back,” Rob Wright III said of Saunders.

“… Having a guy like Richie out, I mean, it obviously hurt us. The game might have been closer than it should have been, but it was just good to pull through, and it’s next man up.”

Thanks to a career night from Wright, a near triple-double from AJ Dybantsa and some timely contributions from its bench, BYU was able to withstand the loss of Saunders and dig out a tough victory, moving to 19-6 on the season and 7-5 in Big 12 play.

“Glad we got the win, bottom line,“ Young said. ”You know, the Big 12’s a tough league. You see it across the landscape, not just in our league, but every league, it’s hard to win, bottom line.

“We had a lot working against us tonight. Proud of our guys for stepping up. We had some guys coming off the bench and make huge plays.”

Those bench heroes for the Cougars included Tyler Mrus, who was the initial post-injury sub for Saunders and scored six first half points, and Aleksej Kostic, whose 3-pointer with 1:21 left to play in overtime gave BYU a lead it would never surrender.

“You’ve got to find a way to come in and channel that emotion. I thought Tyler did a great job of coming in and making a couple shots, and then obviously (Kostic) hit the huge one there at the end,” Young said.

“It’s a team game, and guys got to come in off the bench and be ready to go, which we haven’t done a lot this year because (Saunders, Wright and Dybantsa) have been so good. But I was proud of those guys to come in ready to contribute to the win.”

Fresh off a career-high 30 points in his return to Baylor earlier this week, Wright quickly posted a new personal best with 39 points Saturday, doing so on 12 of 16 shooting — with four made 3-pointers — while adding five rebounds and four assists.

“I didn’t even know he had that many points, to be honest with you. I looked down after the game and was like, ‘Holy cow.’ He’s playing the game right now at an incredible pace in terms of his control,” Young said of Wright.

“… I think the last couple games he’s done a fantastic job of getting to the paint, playing under control, playing off two feet. … He’s shooting the ball at a very high clip in catch and shoot situations, and that’s really helped his efficiency and helped him be a real scoring threat for us.”

With Saunders’ injury freeing up Colorado to put more men on Dybantsa, Wright pivoted from his typical point guard duties to play off the ball for much of the game, leveraging Dybantsa’s double teams for 29 points after halftime.

“It just felt good to get the win,” Wright said. “I mean, they were doubling AJ, so I was just playing off him, making shots early and just got rolling.

“When Richie went down, we knew somebody had to step up, so I guess it was me today.”

Amid the thick defensive coverage, Dybantsa accounted for seven of BYU’s 16 total turnovers and shot 6 of 20 from the field, but the freshman phenom still managed to provide 20 points, a career-high 13 rebounds and eight assists.

“My dad, he tells me I don’t rebound a lot, so I came in here and just, you know, wanted to prove to him that I can rebound,” Dybantsa said.

“But also, like, (my) shots weren’t falling, so I was trying to make sure that if the other team misses a shot, that they don’t get any second-chance opportunities.”

Added Young: “At (Dybantsa’s) size, to be able to have eight assists I think says a lot about his growth, you know, in terms of playing a little bit more under control. We’ve got to clean those turnovers up.”

It was a dogfight for much of the day, with BYU and Colorado knotted at 60 points apiece with just over nine minutes left to play in the second half.

The Cougars then put together a 11-4 run over the following four minutes to lead by seven, only to miss four of their next six field goal attempts as the Buffaloes made five of their next eight and forced overtime thanks to an Isaiah Johnson layup with 18 seconds remaining.

In overtime, however, BYU stood its ground and held Colorado to 2 of 10 shooting, with Dybantsa and Wright sinking five free throws after Kostic’s clutch triple to finally bury the Buffs.

“(We) got a little too comfortable. You know, we’re trying to get our defense right,” Young said. “… I’ll say it again, I fully expected this game to be very difficult. … You knew (Colorado) was going to be ready to come in and fight, and that’s a good lesson for our guys.

“I’m just happy that our guys were able to pull a win out. Games like those can be very challenging, especially given what happened early in the game emotionally and so forth. I’m saying all that to say that was kind of the message in the in the timeout (before overtime), like, ‘Man, let’s let’s find a way to go out and get this thing done,’ and thankfully, we did.”

While BYU made 50% of its 3-pointers, the Cougars were inconsistent inside the arc to shoot 45% on 2-point shots, missing six layups and gifting the Buffs 21 points from 16 turnovers.

Conversely, Colorado shot 44% from the field and 28.1% from long distance, with BYU winning the rebound battle by a 46-39 margin.

Now winners of two straight, the Cougars will head down to Tucson for a rematch with Arizona at the McKale Center next Wednesday, with the Wildcats currently ranked No. 1 nationally but riding a 2-game losing skid, including Saturday night to No. 16 Texas Tech.

“I think we should have won the one at home. Losing by (three) really hurt us,” Dybantsa said of BYU’s first meeting with Arizona, a 86-83 loss.

“(There were) some defensive lapses that we shouldn’t have had, so I mean, we’re coming in ready. We’re going to have the scouting report ready, we’re going to trust the staff and go get a win in McKale.”

But whether Saunders is on the floor for such an effort — let alone the rest of the season — remains to be seen.

Bilingual students in Colorado could soon earn recognition — and possibly college credits — for proving fluency in a foreign language learned at home, thanks to a new bill passed by the House Education Committee.

House Bill 1028 does two things: It changes educational requirements for the biliteracy endorsement program, and it creates a new diploma enforcement for bilingualism for graduating high school students.

Existing laws surrounding biliteracy credentials on high school diplomas, passed in 2017, allow school districts to grant diploma endorsements in biliteracy to students who demonstrate proficiency in at least one foreign language, in addition to English. 

More than 114,000 students — approximately 13% of Colorado’s K-12 student population — are identified as multilingual learners, yet only 55 out of the state’s 179 school districts offer a biliteracy seal.

“Currently, we have students who clearly meet the skill level for biliteracy, or bilingualism, but they cannot access recognition simply because their school doesn’t offer it,” Rep. Elizabeth Velasco, a Glenwood Springs Democrat and one of the bill’s primary sponsors, said during the bill’s Feb. 5 Education Committee hearing. 

House Bill 1028 would expand access to biliteracy credentials by allowing students in school districts that do not offer the program to still complete it through other department-certified entities, which could include partnering with other school districts.

A biliteracy diploma endorsement is awarded to students who can read, write, speak and understand English and an additional foreign language. Bilingualism endorsements, which would be created under House Bill 1028, would be awarded to students who can speak and understand another language but don’t possess reading and writing skills — sometimes because the language is primarily oral and doesn’t have a standardized written form.

“The reason why (this distinction) is so profoundly important is because … we have many languages that also don’t have written language, and that in itself precludes them from being able to demonstrate and highlight that they are in fact bilingual,” said Rep. Lorena Garcia, an Adams County Democrat and one of the bill’s primary sponsors.

For higher education institutions that recognize the seal of biliteracy and bilingualism in high school diplomas, students with these seals could see them transferred into credits or be placed in a higher-level language class.

The seal would be especially beneficial to students who learned a foreign language outside of a classroom setting, who otherwise wouldn’t receive any credits or recognition for their abilities.

“The kids of immigrants are speaking their native language at home, but they might not have any AP classes or any classes where they’re learning how to write it,” Velasco said.

Jorge Garcia, Board Chairman and CEO of the Colorado Association for Bilingual Education, testified in favor of the bill nine years after supporting the original 2017 legislation. Garcia said the legislation “had a very powerful impact” on thousands of students across the state, some of which received college credit for having the seal and had better access to scholarships.

Expanding access to the seal of biliteracy through third-party organizations, Garcia said, increases these opportunities for students without lowering existing standards or reducing the rigor of these endorsements.

Educators and other community members also asked lawmakers to consider amendments, such as updating how bilingual proficiency is measured and including equivalent credits outside of those acquired through Advancement Placement assessments, which are designed for students planning to attend college.

James Yoder, who helps coordinate a biliteracy program in Aurora, said only two colleges and universities in the state currently recognize these seals. He suggested that language be added to the bill requiring all state colleges to recognize the achievement either through credit, higher-level placement in language classes or another benefit that helps students save on tuition.

“As it stands, the seal of biliteracy is basically a certificate and a pat on the back,” Yoder said.

Despite all 50 states offering the seal of biliteracy, Colorado is one of six states that does not collect data on students that receive the seal. Yoder requested that language be added to the bill that requires the Colorado Department of Education to collect and report that data.

If passed, the bill is projected to cost the state over $36,000 during its first year (2026-27) and $24,000 in the years following, most of which would come from the general fund during an already tight budget year.

Some lawmakers expressed concerns over the bill’s financial costs, pointing to bill language that says school districts that don’t already have their own program would have to pay a fee to work with a college or educational nonprofits.

Rep. Dusty Johnson, representing House District 63, shared that some of her smaller school districts are barely able to keep track of their K-12 costs, and that unintended fees could put them at more of a deficit.

Offering either endorsement program remains optional for school districts, Garcia said. One of the bill’s amendments further clarifies that if a student needs the services of another school district to attain a seal of bilingualism or biliteracy, an agreement has to be made between the school districts.

The bill passed the House Education Committee Thursday with an 8-5 vote and was referred to the Committee on Appropriations.

“I think for many of us immigrants, when we come to the U.S., we are met with a system that sees us as lacking something because we don’t speak English. But we’re actually bringing so much more,” Velasco said, recounting her own experience of arriving in the United States when she was 16 years old. “For me, it’s very very important for students to be able to celebrate … those skills that they have and are bringing from home, or from a different country.”

One day before the deadline, states in the Upper Colorado River Basin reached consensus on how to manage water rights and dwindling resources moving forward, but the Lower Basin states rejected the plan as unfair.

Representatives from Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico, California, Nevada and Arizona have been working to reach a new agreement as demand and threats to the river’s water supply continue to increase. Management of Colorado River resources has been governed by the Colorado River Compact since 1922, but disputes over water use and resource constraints have led to lawsuits in recent years.

The Bureau of Reclamation says several decision documents and agreements governing the river’s operation are set to expire at the end of this year. The western states have been working to renegotiate the water use pact for over two years and missed the November deadline to reach a new agreement. A new deadline was set for Feb. 14.

Representatives of the seven states entered talks in the nation’s capital at the end of January.

On Friday, the four Upper Basin states, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico, announced that they reached consensus on a “durable, long-term, basin-wide agreement on post 2026 Colorado River operations.” They say that everyone in the basin must learn to live within the available supply, and that the Upper Basin is preparing for necessary and painful cuts to its water supplies.

A statement issued by the Upper Basin states on Friday said, “Upper Basin water users are preparing for reductions of more than 2.0 MAF this year. Across the entire Upper Basin, this will amount to reductions greater than 40% of the proven water rights. Meanwhile, our downstream neighbors are seeking to secure water from the UDS that simply does not exist.”

John Entsminger, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority in Las Vegas, also issued a statement on Friday, explaining that the states have “failed to reach an agreement to collectively protect our respective communities and economies in the face of almost certain reductions to our use of the river.”

Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo said in a news release that management of the river “must be built on a foundation of shared contribution and innovation, with all Colorado River water users stretching to conserve water.” They asserted that the Lower Basin states have already offered to reduce their share and asserted that their stance remains “firm and fair.”

The Lower Basin states added that they contain approximately 75% of the population, employment, and crop sales supported by the river. They also include 25 Indigenous tribes that depend on it. Utah, Arizona and Nevada are also among the top ten states in percent growth from 2024 to 2025.

Upper Colorado River Commission Chair and Colorado Commissioner, Becky Mitchell, said, “We’re being asked to solve a problem we didn’t create with water we don’t have. The Upper Division’s approach is aligned with hydrologic reality and we’re ready to move forward.”

New Mexico Commissioner Estevan Lopez warned that unrealistic demands on the system will damage the entire basin.

“The River is telling us the truth every year,” he asserted. “We can either negotiate based on real conditions, including this year’s critically low hydrology in the Upper Basin, or we can keep repeating outdated assumptions until the system breaks. The Upper Division is choosing realism and responsibility.”