Junior forward Lucas Siewert looks to shoot the ball during the first half of play at the CU Events Center. Nov. 3, 2018. (Nigel Amstock/CU Independent File)
When the Colorado Buffaloes hit the court Tuesday against Drake, it’ll break the 250-day drought since the men’s basketball team last played a game and will mark the start of the 2018-19 season.
By the team’s calculations, that makes them 250 days more experienced; that’s a pretty big deal for a squad this young.
“Yeah, we’re really young,” sophomore guard Tyler Bey said. “There’s not a big difference from [last year], but everybody here wants the same thing — everybody’s on the same page, everybody clicks.”
In fact, young might be a bit of an understatement. Consider this: 13 out of 17 players on this season’s roster are sophomores or younger. After losing the likes of George King, Dominique Collier and Tory Miller-Stewart to graduation, the Buffs only have one senior, Namon Wright.
This new, youthful team will need to step up in a big way.
“It’s a new start [and] a new goal for us,” Bey said. “We just [have] to go hard from the home opener and then go from there.”
With a team-high of 16 points and 11 rebounds in the Buffs’ 66-57 exhibition win against Colorado School of Mines on Nov. 3, Bey will more than likely be leaned on heavily this season. It’ll be a tall task for the tall sophomore.
But the 6-foot-7, 218-pound guard won’t be the only second-year who will be expected to step up this season.
As a matter of fact, the 2018-19 Buffaloes basketball team is a very sophomore-heavy squad. Led by point guard McKinley Wright IV who led the Buffs in scoring last season, small forward D’Shawn Schwartz (who will see a huge boost in last season’s average of 13.1 minutes per game) and the aforementioned Bey are all sporting just two years of experience.
Colorado’s starting five will need to grow up fast, but they’ll have help from some returning upperclassmen. Aside from the lone senior, the Buffs boast a duo of juniors who can do some damage: guard Deleon Brown, who missed the final eight games of last season due to a broken hand, and forward Lucas Siewart, who led the team in 3-point percentage last season (.448).
“I think we’re really focused,” Siewart said. “We’ve been pumped up for a week now. We can’t wait to get out there. We know [teams] are not going to beat themselves so we got to go out there and play hard and show that we’re ready.”
Confidence is key in the sports world, and this year’s Buffs team assures the doubters that they certainly have plenty of it heading into the season.
“[We’re] a lot more confident,” Bey said. “Freshman year was a learning experience, [and] I learned a lot from that. We got a lot more confidence [than we had] last year.” Bey said.
The now-sophomores will be relied on heavily this coming season. Luckily, the Buffs have plenty of experience leading the charge. For ninth-year head coach Tad Boyle, it’ll be his job to get his young team to rise to the challenge. Boyle, however, isn’t too worried.
“I love our attitude, the attitude is good,” Boyle said. “Everybody gets 30 practices before the first game … most of the [practices] in the mid-20’s, you can tell guys are ready to play against somebody else.”
His young team is learning the hardships and pressures that comes with the opportunity to play college basketball.
“You know, that’s where mental toughness is born from,” Boyle said. “[It’s] finally figuring out ‘hey, it doesn’t matter if it’s a practice at seven in the morning or if it’s a game at six o’clock at night, we got to be ready to play.’ Hopefully we will be.”
Entering the season, not many expect the Buffs to make too much noise in the Pac-12. That can more than likely be attributed to how young and inexperienced this year’s squad is.
Media pundits and major outlets like ESPN and Sports Illustrated have Colorado finishing in the middle of the pack in the Pac-12 conference. ESPN has the Buffs in ninth place come season’s end, and SI has them at a slightly more favorable fifth-place finish.
“Everybody’s sleeping on us,” Bey said. “The whole Pac-12 is sleeping on us. So obviously we just need to come out and show them what we can do.”
The young Buffaloes squad will certainly have a lot to prove in what is a pretty deep Pac-12 conference. The preseason AP polls have three Pac-12 schools ranked in the Top 25 (No. 14 Oregon, No. 21 UCLA, No. 25 Washington).
“Unless they pick you first, you should feel like you have something to prove,” Boyle said. “We haven’t been picked first since we’ve been [in the Pac-12]. You got to use that stuff as motivation. Again, that’s the edge I’m talking about.”
The edge coach Boyle is referring to is the the team’s overall confidence and excitement that he wants his team to play with.
“I’m ready,” Boyle said. “I got the butterflies, I got the excitement, there’s no doubt. This is not just another opener, this is an important basketball game for our team [and] our program. So yeah, I feel the edge. I hope the players feel the edge.”
Though Pac-12 play won’t start until the first week of January, it’s these early resume-building, non-conference games that set the tone of the season.
“I think non-conference [games are] everything,” assistant coach Kim English said. “I think it’s the most important season because it’s the season that we’re currently in … We put supreme importance on these [non-conference] games from day one. This Drake game is the most important game of our season.”
The season-opener against Drake is an opportunity to start the season on a strong note. After all, every game, every win, has an impact.
“Every game in college basketball counts; it does, every game counts,” Boyle said. “November games are just as important as February games.”
Preparation and practice is everything, and the Buffs feel well-prepared. However, how that translates on the court won’t be known until that first tipoff.
“I’m big on [waiting] to see when the game starts,” English said. “I feel good about what we’ve worked on, I feel good about the habits that we’ve built. But you just never really know until those lights are on, that ball is thrown up, the people are in the stands and you’re playing against different guys…”
It all starts Tuesday night against Drake at 6 p.m. at the CU Events Center.
Contact CU Independent Sports Staff Writer Scott MacDonald at scma0899@colorado.edu and follow him on Twitter @ScottTopics
