The Buffalo basketball team doesn't need to watch the Magic of Polynesia show in Waikiki this week.

The Bulls have created some magic of their own in the 45th Annual Outrigger Hotels Rainbow Classic, winning their second consecutive game on a last-second shot last night.

Calvin Betts drained a leaning jump shot from 14 feet out with 0.5 seconds remaining to give Buffalo a 62-60 victory over Colorado in the semifinals of the Classic last night at the Stan Sheriff Center.

"The way the play was set up, it wasn't really for me," Betts said. "But I saw there was two seconds left so I decided to take the shot. It felt good and just went in."

Buffalo will play Colorado State for the tournament championship tonight at 7:30.

Betts' winning shot came moments after Colorado tied the score at 60 on Dwight Thorne II's driving layup with 11.7 seconds remaining.

After a Colorado timeout, the Bulls designed a play that went awry and ended up in the hands of Betts. From the top of the key, he drove down the right side of the lane and hit the shot.

"It was not designed for (Betts)," Buffalo head coach Reggie Witherspoon said. "The ball was going to go to him and then we were going to see what happened after that. But it worked out terrific."

On Sunday, Andy Robinson hit a similar off-balance jump shot with 0.8 seconds remaining in a victory over Pepperdine.

"It is good to be on the good side of it," Witherspoon said. "We had our share of close ones, some even this year that have gone down to the wire. So it's good for these guys to experience the top side of it."

Witherspoon said it helped that he had five guards on the court in the closing seconds of both games.

"The thing that happened in both of them was we had a small lineup in, so we had multiple ball handlers available," he said.

Robinson finished with a team-high 16 points and five rebounds. Betts contributed 15 points on 7-of-11 shooting.

Buffalo and Colorado are both 7-4.

Colorado staged a valiant comeback to make it exciting in the closing minutes.

Buffalo led by as many as 13 in the first half, and took a 38-29 lead at intermission.

Colorado never took the lead in the second half, but managed to tie the score at 56 with 5:16 remaining, and then at 60 on Thorne's shot with 11.7 seconds left.

"We didn't lose our composure down the stretch," Witherspoon said.

Cory Higgins led Colorado with 15 points, and Nate Tomlinson added 13.

Buffalo went just 6 of 12 on free throws, but out-rebounded Colorado, 32-21.

COLORADO STATE 82, VERMONT 76

Marcus Walker scored 26 points off the bench to lead the Rams to an upset of the Catamounts in yesterday's first semifinal.

Walker scored 16 points in the first half, helping Colorado State to a 42-36 lead at intermission. The Rams increased their lead to as many as 13 early in the second half, then held off a late flurry from Vermont.

The Catamounts cut the Colorado State lead to 71-69 with 1:52 remaining. But Walker scored four consecutive points to put the Rams in control for good.

Colorado State went 9 of 10 from the free-throw line in the final minute to seal the victory.

Four other Rams reached double-figure points: Willis Gardner had 17, Jesse Carr scored 12, Andre McFarland had 10 and nine rebounds, and Travis Franklin had 10 and seven rebounds.

The Rams came to the Rainbow Classic on a six-game losing streak, but have now won two in a row to improve their overall record to 5-8.

Colorado State also reached the championship game in its last Rainbow Classic appearance in 2005. Iowa State defeated the Rams for the title that year.

Vermont dropped to 7-4. Colin McIntosh scored 22 points and Nick Vier added 18 to lead the Catamounts.