![\"Head](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/DCC-L-CUMBB249.jpg\")
Colorado head coach Tad Boyle instructs his players during a practice June 18 in Boulder. (Cliff Grassmick\/Staff Photographer)<\/p>\nColorado head coach Tad Boyle instructs his players during a practice June 18 in Boulder. (Cliff Grassmick\/Staff Photographer)<\/p>\n
It won\u2019t be a full-strength roster until Bangot Dak returns from his offseason injury setback.<\/p>\n
But it turns out a couple of newcomers whose summer availability was in question are in line to join the Colorado men\u2019s basketball team during its upcoming exhibition tour of Australia.<\/p>\n
University of Denver transfer Jon Mani and new Italian-Canadian signee Leonardo Van Elswyk both were facing possible extended summer absences for duties with their respective national teams. However, both players are expected to join the Buffaloes when they resume summer practices on July 7, and also are set to travel with the team when the Buffs leave for Australia on July 23.<\/p>\n
In the case of Van Elswyk, the 7-foot-1 center signed last week out of Italy, he had been trying out for the Italian U20 national team. The tryout didn\u2019t go Van Elswyk\u2019s way, and his next stop is Boulder.<\/p>\n
Mani had been working out with the U20 team in Israel when the country\u2019s conflict with Iran scuttled the training camp and forced Mani, among so many others, to scramble to find a flight home. That eventually was accomplished, and Mani also is expected to make his CU practice debut next week.<\/p>\n
The 6-foot-6 Mani appeared in 30 games for DU last season, making six starts. Mani averaged 2.9 points and 1.6 rebounds in 13.9 minutes, shooting .330 overall and .306 on 3-pointers (15-for-49).<\/p>\n
Last week\u2019s addition of Van Elswyk left the Buffs\u2019 roster at 14 players, with another frontcourt player likely to be added soon.<\/p>\n
\u201c(Van Elswyk) addresses one of them,\u201d CU associate head coach\/recruiting coordinator Mike Rohn recently told the Daily Camera regarding the Buffs\u2019 frontcourt needs. \u201cWe\u2019re still going to try to get one more that\u2019s probably a little more ready to contribute and play.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s interesting. We\u2019re navigating it. The only people that have maybe an easy road to building their team are the people that can pay them enough and have enough depth and really good players. And then eight or nine of them are going to survive that year and play in the rotation, and the rest are either going to stay or they\u2019re going to leave. If they\u2019re good enough, they\u2019ll pay them to stay. If they\u2019re not, they\u2019ll just find that next guy next year. Retention is still going to be really big for Tad (Boyle). And in all reality, here it should be.\u201d<\/p>\n
Notable<\/p>\n
The Buffs are scheduled to hold three practices next week, then hold the final three the week of July 21 ahead of the July 23 departure date for the four-game trip to Australia. \u2026 Former CU player Dwight Thorne joined the coaching staff at Texas State, which on Monday accepted an invitation to join the revamped Pac-12 Conference. Thorne spent last season as an assistant at Metro State and spent the previous two seasons at UT Arlington. \u2026 Former CU assistant Zach Ruebesam, now the head coach at CSU-Pueblo, added Jonathan Scott to his staff. Scott is the younger brother of former CU star Josh Scott.<\/p>\n
Originally Published: June 30, 2025 at 5:01 PM MDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Colorado head coach Tad Boyle instructs his players during a practice June 18 in Boulder. (Cliff Grassmick\/Staff Photographer)…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":28452,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[1339,4437,4438,4441,1369,2076,4436,4439,4440,1370,1317,1337,1338,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-28451","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-front-range","17":"tag-latest-headlines","18":"tag-ncaa","19":"tag-ncaa-basketball","20":"tag-ncaabasketball","21":"tag-sports","22":"tag-united-states","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114775098999053417","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28451","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=28451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}