KANSAS CITY, Mo. — There’s a much-used expression in March, when every game can be a team’s last of the season. Survive and advance.Colorado has survived twice this season in the Big 12 Championship in Kansas City, Mo., but advancing means a matchup with the No. 2 team in the nation, Houston, on Thursday afternoon in the quarterfinals.The 16th-seeded Buffaloes (14-19) have defeated TCU and West Virginia in back-to-back games, but the challenge just got a lot tougher. No. 1 seed Houston (27-4) won the difficult Big 12 Conference regular season by a whopping four games.The Cougars have won 10 games in a row and 23 of their last 24. And they’re rested, while Colorado has played 80 minutes of tournament basketball in the last two days.”All I know is we’re ready to take on Houston and we will worry about that tonight,” Colorado coach Tad Boyle said after the victory over West Virginia on Wednesday. “(I’m) really, really proud of this group, because we have had a rough year in terms of coming up short in some of these games.”Elijah Malone scored 12 of his 14 points in the second half to help the Buffaloes defeat West Virginia 67-60 in the second round. Colorado also got 13 points from RJ Smith and 11 from Andrej Jakimovski.West Virginia stretched its lead to nine points with just over nine minutes left in the second half. But the Buffaloes went on a 15-0 run to turn that deficit into a 52-46 lead with 5:15 left.Houston is hitting on all cylinders. The Cougars’ success this season earned coach Kelvin Sampson Big 12 Coach of the Year honors.All five starters earned postseason honors as well. LJ Cryer and J’Wan Roberts were named first-team all-conference, Milos Uzan was on the second team, Joseph Tugler was on the third team, and Emanuel Sharp was honorable mention.