For Tad Boyle, the hamster wheel keeps on turning.
It has been an offseason unlike any other for the venerable leader of the Colorado men’s basketball team. On the heels of an NCAA Tournament appearance highlighted by a pair of wins, including a wild victory against Florida in one of the most entertaining games of the entire tournament, Buffaloes basketball was all over the offseason hoops headlines.
Cody Williams and Tristan da Silva were selected in the first round of the NBA Draft, giving CU two selections for the first time in the modern format of the draft. KJ Simpson added to that total when he went in the second round. Former Buff and Colorado native Derrick White won the NBA title with the Boston Celtics, added a gold medal at the Paris Olympics, and also signed a lucrative contract extension. Heck, even the alumni squad Team Colorado reached the Sweet 16 of this summer’s $1 million winner-take-all The Basketball Tournament, with former NBA veteran Andre Roberson turning back the clock for a few games.
Yet with summer turning to fall, those hoops glories already are fading like the leaves on the trees. On Monday, the Buffs will hold their first preseason practice ahead of the 2024-25 campaign, Boyle’s 15th at CU. And between the move to the Big 12 Conference and a revamped roster that added three true freshmen alongside three graduate transfers, it will be a whole new ball game.
“I’m excited. I’m excited about the future,” Boyle said. “I’m certainly excited about the year we just had, but I always say coaching Division I basketball at the highest level, it’s like being in a hamster wheel. You never get off. You just keep going. One year turns into the next. One recruiting class turns into the next.”
Already the CU program’s all-time leader in wins, the Buffs’ second victory this year will make Boyle the first CU men’s coach to reach 300 wins. While a Sweet 16 berth remains elusive, CU has reached the NCAA Tournament six times in Boyle’s 14 seasons (seven, if one counts the berth that would’ve happened when the 2020 tournament was cancelled due to the COVID pandemic).
CU likely will be challenged to add to those postseason totals this year. The Big 12 is arguably the top men’s basketball conference in the nation with Kansas, Houston, Baylor and Iowa State all poised to land in the preseason top 10. And as has been the case throughout Boyle’s tenure, a team like the one CU fielded in 2023-24 will give way to a new core of players that will need time to develop into the sort of players capable of leading the Buffs back to the Big Dance. That new core probably will be less about this year’s three graduate transfers — Elijah Malone from Grace College, Trevor Baskin from Colorado Mesa and Andrej Jakimovski from Washington State — than this year’s true freshmen (Andrew Crawford, Felix Kossaras, Sebastian Rancik) in addition to the 2026 class the Buffs expect to sign in November.
It has the feel of a rebuilding year after the Buffs set a program record with 26 wins. But that’s not a term that gets bantered around the CU basketball offices.
“I don’t know if we have three NBA draft picks on this year’s team. Time will tell and we’ll see,” Boyle said. “But we’ve got some good, young, talented players. We’ve got some experienced veteran players coming in. We’ve got enough talent to be successful and to reach the standards that we set for ourselves. Nothing has changed internally. You’re not going to hear it coming from me that this is a rebuilding year. I look at this as a year of opportunity.”