Junior Xavier Johnson fights his way to the basket against fellow Buffs during the scrimmage on Saturday, Oct. 25. (Gray Bender/CU Independent)
There were only about 1,000 people at the Colorado men’s basketball team’s intrasquad scrimmage Saturday morning, but their energy matched that of the much-larger crowd at Folsom Field an hour later for the homecoming football game.
The scrimmage was the fans’ first chance to see the Buffs since their debacle in the NCAA Tournament against Pittsburgh. They watched Askia Booker’s gold squad struggle against Josh Scott’s black team.
Booker didn’t get much help from George King, Jaron Hopkins or Dustin Thomas. Perhaps that’s why his play came off as individualistic; he launched pull-up threes on consecutive possessions in transition.
Still, the fan turnout was encouraging, and not surprising. Colorado announced Thursday that season tickets sold out for the second consecutive year. That’s a program first, and it shows how drastically fan interest has grown in Tad Boyle’s four years as the Buffs’ coach.
Assistant Director of Sports Information Andrew Green has worked with the team for 13 years. Colorado made the NCAA Tournament just once in his first decade in Boulder.
“In all four years since Coach Boyle has been at CU, season tickets have improved,” Green said in an email. “The last two years attendance has skyrocketed.”
The Buffs have drawn an average of 8,617 fans per home game since Boyle took over. Total attendance has grown by almost 50,000 fans from the 2011-12 season. Besides Colorado’s on-court success, Green credits two factors for putting bodies in seats at the Coors Event Center.
The students embraced the team’s success quickly — perhaps because its rise has coincided with the worst five-year stretch in the football progam’s history — and the C-Unit has turned the Keg into one of the most lethal home-court advantages in college basketball; the Buffs are 60-9 at home under Boyle.
“I think the players have embraced that as well,” Green said. “Each team over the last four years has had personalities on the floor that I think the fans have always taken a liking to.”
The other factor, one that fans and media now take for granted after four years, is that Boyle has always held open practices. Boyle’s predecessors, Ricardo Patton and Jeff Bzdelik, closed practice, save 15 minutes at the beginning or end. Colorado football coach Mike MacIntyre employs a similar policy.
“I’m pretty sure we’re the only team in the Pac-12 where practices are open,” Green said.
Green gave a great quote from Boyle about the coach’s practice philosophy: “I’m not trying to cure cancer, I’m trying to promote a basketball program.”
It’s easy to lose sight of how far Boyle has brought Buffs basketball. Colorado was 43-78 in the four years prior to his arrival in Boulder, and it’s been 92-49 since.
But those days are long past. The Coors Events Center will be packed when the Buffs open their season against Drexel. On the night of Nov. 14, fans will, for the first time this year, see a Colorado team they expect to win.
The Buffs had Thursday and Friday off in preparation for the scrimmage. They’re back at it this week, and so is the CUI’s coverage of the team — check back next week for a breakdown of Colorado’s fast-break offense.
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Tommy Wood at Thomas.C.Wood@colorado.edu.
