The requisite talent has arrived to potentially pull the Colorado men\u2019s basketball team out of the Big 12 Conference basement.<\/p>\n
Whether all the new Buffaloes actually do so remains to be proven on the floor. And, perhaps more critically in the new era of college basketball, whether they remain together long enough to get over that hump will be another challenge entirely.<\/p>\n
Player retention isn\u2019t at the forefront of Tad Boyle\u2019s mind, at least not in week two of leading his 16th preseason as the head coach of the CU men\u2019s basketball team. Yet even if the new-look roster makes a significant leap from last season\u2019s last-place finish in the conference, a jump all the way into NCAA Tournament contention is unlikely for a team breaking in seven true freshmen.<\/p>\n
CU has only one player whose eligibility is set to expire in sixth-year center Elijah Malone. So even if it\u2019s a concern best left for the spring, player retention remains critical to the recruit-and-development model still followed by Boyle and his staff.<\/p>\n
His players possibly receiving more lucrative revenue sharing offers is somewhat out of Boyle\u2019s control. Setting the foundation for the young players\u2019 experience as part of the Colorado basketball program is not.<\/p>\n
Asked earlier this preseason if that dynamic \u2014 knowing the program building blocks depend on a solid percentage of player retention \u2014 has changed how he might coach a young player, Boyle said he believes it\u2019s still best to just be himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always felt like you coach kids from a place of caring,\u201d Boyle said. \u201cKids don\u2019t care how much you know until they know how much you care. I don\u2019t think that\u2019s changed. Now, what has changed is money coming into the equation. There\u2019s no question about that.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut at the end of the day, if a kid knows you care about him, and you\u2019re coaching him, they\u2019re going to respond to that. And you coach them with respect. You coach them certainly with firmness and discipline, but also with, \u2018Hey I care about you and I want what\u2019s best for you.\u2019 As long as you\u2019re coming from a place of you\u2019re trying to help the young man that you\u2019re coaching, you can coach him as hard as you want.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of the Buffs\u2019 14 scholarship players, 10 haven\u2019t played a minute of basketball for Boyle in seven freshmen, transfer guards Barrington Hargress and Jon Mani, and second-year wing Andrew Crawford, who was in the program last year but redshirted.<\/p>\n
Fitting in<\/p>\n
Last season was Bangot Dak\u2019s first as a full-time rotation player. It also marked CU\u2019s return to the Big 12 Conference, which was a step up in competition and physicality from the Pac-12.<\/p>\n
Although Dak still is rounding into form following an offseason knee injury, he\u2019s listed at 203 pounds, up from 185 a year ago, and he believes he is better equipped to deal with the physical rigors of playing 30-plus games.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like last year I kind of had to find myself throughout the year, how comfortable I could be around the perimeter and playing well with the physicality,\u201d Dak said. \u201cAnd all that coming towards this year, I feel like I\u2019ve got everything I need and I know what to expect.\u201d<\/p>\n
Notable<\/p>\n
The details still are being finalized, but the Buffs are planning to hold their annual Black & Gold intrasquad scrimmage ahead of the Iowa State football game on Oct. 11, which kicks off at 1:30 p.m. The event typically is open to the public at the Events Center and usually begins a few hours before kickoff. \u2026 The Big 12 basketball media days will be held in Kansas City on Oct. 21 (women) and Oct. 22 (men). \u2026 The Buffs will host Marquette in a closed scrimmage on Oct. 26. CU is scheduled to travel to Marquette next year for a closed scrimmage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The requisite talent has arrived to potentially pull the Colorado men\u2019s basketball team out of the Big 12…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":267524,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[1339,4437,4438,4441,1369,2076,4436,4439,9577,4440,1370,728,1317,1337,1338,50,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-267523","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-boulder","10":"tag-boulder-county","11":"tag-buffzone","12":"tag-college-sports","13":"tag-college-basketball","14":"tag-college-menu2019s-basketball","15":"tag-colorado","16":"tag-colorado-news","17":"tag-front-range","18":"tag-latest-headlines","19":"tag-local-news","20":"tag-ncaa","21":"tag-ncaa-basketball","22":"tag-ncaabasketball","23":"tag-news","24":"tag-sports","25":"tag-united-states","26":"tag-unitedstates","27":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115295473301384833","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}