BOULDER — Jeremy Williams has not announced whether he will return to the Colorado men’s basketball team, but coach Jeff Bzdelik said Thursday the program is prepared to move ahead without the sophomore forward.
Unlike six other former Ricardo Patton signees who have left CU during the past 14 months, Williams impressed Bzdelik with his skills and athleticism. But the Memphis native, who averaged 7.7 points and 4.6 rebounds as a freshman in 2006-07, continues to face an uphill battle to become eligible by August.
Williams was academically ineligible last season but practiced with the team. Williams would need to complete a full load of classes during summer school, and even that might not be enough, Bzdelik said.
“We would be a better team with Jeremy,” Bzdelik said. “He’s a wonderful young man that we want to help, whether it’s for here or for whatever he wants to do. We want him. But he’s got to want to be here, too.”
Without Williams, Bzdelik would enter his second season with only four players remaining from Patton’s recruiting classes: senior forward Jermyl Jackson-Wilson, junior guard Dwight Thorne, junior forward Trent Beckley and sophomore guard Levi Knutson. Patton was gone before Knutson arrived.
Bzdelik said his starting lineup this season could include two sophomores — 6-foot-9 Wake Forest transfer Casey Crawford and returning starter Cory Higgins, a 6-5 guard — and three of the five incoming freshmen. The most highly rated of the first-year players are 6-7 forward Toby Veal of Savannah, Ga.; 6-8 forward Austin Dufault of Killdeer, N.D.; and 6-2 point guard Nate Tomlinson, an Australian who played last season at Lee Academy in Maine.
“We’re obviously going to be very, very young,” Bzdelik said. “But I believe we’re going to be very skilled and we’ll have depth. And I don’t think I’ll have to coach effort.”
Footnotes. Bzdelik applauded
school administrators for facility
improvements. The offices
for the men’s and women’s basketball
teams are now located
in the Coors Events Center.
The plush men’s locker room
should be ready within two
weeks. The hardwood basketball
floor will be replaced. And
plans to build a practice facility
are months ahead of schedule,
the coach said. … Opponents
for nonconference home
games will include Colorado
State, Texas Christian, Harvard,
Louisiana-Lafayette and
Montana State. Series with
Denver and Wyoming will resume
in the 2009-10 season,
but CU will no longer play
against Air Force because of
the friendship between Bzdelik
and Falcons coach Jeff Reynolds. … Hoping to improve
CU’s chances of recruiting the
region’s top players in future
years, Bzdelik added a June
21-22 “Elite Camp.”
Tom Kensler: 303-954-1280 or
tkensler@denverpost.com
