Boulder – While it often feels as if the misery goes on forever and the pity party for the Buffaloes will never end, the answer to Colorado’s desperate basketball prayers can be found less than 50 miles down the road.
How soon before Jeff Bzdelik or Mike Dunlap can get here?
In more than a century of CU’s hoops, the Buffaloes have had more than their share of lost years. But watching this team lose night after endless night, with the arena as lonely and gray as a tomb, is morbid. The Ricardo Patton era has a duty to die.
“You walk in and there’s so much battleship gray in the building, it is kind of depressing,” CU athletic director Mike Bohn said Wednesday, while sitting in the Coors Events Center with 3,186 of his closest friends as Missouri won its first league game of the season by pounding the Buffaloes 79-65.
Now for the good news: In no more than 45 days, Patton will be gone, the Buffs can get on with their lives, and it will again be OK to dream.
“I’m not discouraged. I’m fired up,” Bohn said.
He has 45 days and a salary budget of $750,000 (plus incentives) to find the coach who can fix what’s wrong with CU basketball.
“I have a tremendous amount of respect for the work we have to do,” said Bohn, who sat in the arena bleachers and thanked spectators for coming with the same appreciative tone offered all big-hearted folks willing to attend a funeral. “It makes it that much more challenging because people don’t believe.”
Count me among the crazy dreamers who believe Buffs can dance, and that the right coach can make March Madness a realistic goal for CU basketball.
What’s more, the right coach won’t be hard to find.
Bzdelik, who has shown Air Force how to fly among the nation’s elite, lives within an hour’s drive of the CU campus.
Dunlap, who twice won Division II national titles at Metro State, is sitting on the Nuggets bench as an assistant.
Here’s betting Dunlap or Bzdelik would be intrigued by the challenge at CU.
If Colorado cannot hire one of them, shame on Bohn.
While Bohn declined to discuss individual candidates, he knows what the Buffs need.
“The expectation we have for this hire is a man who wants to be the next Sox Walseth and leave his mark on this program and leave a legacy at Colorado,” Bohn said.
CU basketball never figures to be Duke or Kentucky, where students live in tents to secure prime seats or a movie actress follows the team wherever it goes in the NCAA Tournament.
But a tourney bid would not seem like a happy accident for the Buffs if the school regularly identified and landed the best prep players in Colorado.
Matt Bouldin left the state for Gonzaga, Nick Fazekas took off for Nevada and Sean Ogirri thought the grass was greener at Wichita State.
All those out-of-state schools can provide a better basketball education than anything Colorado currently can offer. But it’s not as if Bouldin, Fazekas and Ogirri signed with programs with the tradition of UCLA or Kansas.
Bohn is committed to talking with high school coaches within the state to make CU a more appealing destination. If the new coach of the Buffs cannot compete with Nevada or Wichita State for talent, then Bohn will have made the wrong hire.
The word on the street in NBA cities is the league wants Bzdelik back, and to be honest, the pro ranks are where I see him going, as either a lead assistant or a head coach, if he decides to leave Air Force after this season.
Dunlap seems like the better fit for the Buffs. He likes to play with a hyper-intense style that leaves opponents gasping for air. His long-standing connections to Australia could hook up CU with new recruiting turf where basketball is on the rise.
With the NBA prospects of Colorado junior Richard Roby as sketchy as his shooting accuracy, either Dunlap or Bzdelik could provide tutoring that could be worth millions to Roby.
In no more than 45 days, Patton will be gone. Bohn must know where Dunlap and Bzdelik live. Road trip.
Gas up the car and don’t come back home without a coach who can teach the Buffs to dance.
Staff writer Mark Kiszla can be reached at 303-954-1053 or mkiszla@denverpost.com.
