And now for the non-news of the day: The CU men’s basketball team is experiencing a transition year.
Having inherited a have-not program, Jeff Bzdelik knew it was going to be like this. He knew he would have to make the best of this season in hopes of bigger and better things in the future.
But that hasn’t made it any easier to go through it.
“Sometimes,” Bzdelik said, “I just have to take a step back and count to 10.”
Maybe he should try counting to eight. That’s the number of new players he expects to have in his second season on the CU bench, when the Buffs will have one senior and two juniors on the roster.
Given such an extreme makeover, next season figures to be a challenging one, too. But at least Bzdelik will have his own players, ones he recruited to play in his system.
As for this season, he’s trying to maintain a respectable program with players recruited by Ricardo Patton. The results have been spotty, predictably so. The Buffs are 9-10 overall and 1-4 in the Big 12 Conference, their latest loss having come Saturday in Boulder, where they led Mizzou by 14 points before imploding down the stretch.
“As I’ve said many times, I had both eyes open entering this situation here,” said Bzdelik. “Could we have four or five more wins? Yes we could. But wouldas, couldas and shouldas don’t count. Depth is a problem, size is a problem, and learning a new system is a problem, but we’re slowly getting through that.”
By the time they get through it, the season will be over and Bzdelik will move on to the next phase of rebuilding the program. For all he knows, the Buffs may struggle more next season than they have in this one. To paraphrase the bumper stick, it happens when you’re trying to put a program on the college-basketball map.
“I’m really excited about the future and that’s got to be the focus,” said Bzdelik. “The focus has to be on the bigger picture; it has to be.”
The trick is riding things out until the future arrives.
Follow Jim Armstrong’s daily sports commentaries on The Jimmy Page during the week at noon. And read his columns on Sundays at .
He can be reached at 303-954-1269 or jmarmstrong@denverpost.com.
