BOULDER — As soon as Colorado had completed its first losing season in five years last March, men’s basketball coach Tad Boyle directed everyone, including himself, toward the nearest mirror.
It had been a season of finger pointing, frustration and failure to meet expectations. A team that had made its third consecutive NCAA Tournament a year earlier was suddenly at a crossroads.
“Everybody in the program — players, coaches, managers, support staff — we were very, very disappointed in last year and felt like we took a step backward, quite frankly,” Boyle, CU’s sixth-year head coach, told The Denver Post last week. “I asked every player to do a self-assessment. I certainly asked every coach to do it. I did it. Then we got together as a coaching staff and made some changes.”
Those changes have helped Colorado enter the second half of its Pac-12 Conference schedule in position to challenge for its first regular-season title since joining the league in 2011.
At 16-5 overall and 5-3 in the Pac-12 entering Sunday’s showdown with California (14-7, 4-4) at the Coors Events Center, the Buffs already have matched their win total from a season ago.
“What I would say, whether it’s to fans or the casual observer when they think about this Colorado basketball team, it’s this has a chance to be a really special team,” Boyle said.
That’s a far cry from where the Buffaloes finished just a season ago, when they suffered through a disappointing 16-18 campaign that was plagued with injuries, poor performances and a lack of discernible identity.
“We had to regroup, recommit and get our edge back,” Boyle said. “And we did that with hard work.”
For the first time since Boyle took over in Boulder, a new season for the Buffs began almost immediately after the previous one ended. Players went through an extensive spring conditioning program for the first time. It was a way for the team to quickly flush the sour feelings from the season that had just ended, but it was also designed to provide a reminder that maintaining the program’s standard wasn’t supposed to be easy.
“It was the toughest spring workouts I’ve ever been a part of in my four years,” said senior forward Josh Scott, who has emerged as a Pac-12 player of the year candidate after a junior season plagued by injury. “It sent a message from the get-go. It told us, ‘If you want to be here, you better be ready to work.’ “
Sophomore point guard Dom Collier said the conditioning was unlike anything he had experienced before.
“I honestly thought it was going to be basketball stuff, but we did a whole lot of sprints and suicides,” he said. “We didn’t like it. But we are seeing that it is paying off.”
The renewed standard of commitment for players continued into the summer.
“Usually in June I have the players on campus and in July they go home,” Boyle said. “Guess what. June and July they were here, going to summer school, doing workouts. Again, we recommitted ourselves, and the players really bought in.”
Buffaloes feature a great Scott
For his part, Boyle didn’t take that commitment for granted. His own self-assessment had revealed that he hadn’t been tough enough on his team at times last season. He was determined to press his thumb harder into the pulse of his team, interacting even closer with Scott, the team’s leader, to make sure he had a better idea of how chemistry was forming in the locker room. And the coach hasn’t been afraid to be more of an authoritative front.
“We knew things were going to be different, because he said that he had been too much of a nice guy last year,” said Collier, a former Denver East star. “So I knew when we started those sprints that it was going to be a whole other year to get ready for.”
By the time the Buffs began fall workouts in October, Boyle knew his team was going to be different than the one that had struggled so mightily the year before.
An identity quickly began to take shape. It was clear the Buffs, with the addition of Providence transfer Josh Fortune, the emergence of redshirt sophomore George King and the marked improvement of Collier, had the makings of a dangerous perimeter team.
“I got the feeling in the fall that we had guys who could shoot way better than on teams we’d had before,” Scott said.
The 3-point shooting success for the Buffs — CU leads the Pac-12 at 40.9 percent — has been aided in no small part by Scott. After being hampered by back pain during what he called a “miserable” junior season, the 6-foot-10 forward has been one of the country’s best post players. He’s averaging 17.3 points per game (second in the Pac-12) and 9.7 rebounds (fourth). That production has drawn heavy attention from opponents, and Scott’s willingness and ability to quickly move the ball out of double-teams has resulted in a far more productive offense than last season’s Buffs, who became overly reliant at times on the streaky scoring of point guard Askia Booker.
“Josh knows when he’s double-teamed that he needs to throw the ball out of the double-team and somebody else has to make a play,” Boyle said. “Josh knows that, has accepted that and has done that. That’s the difference.”
Scott’s stellar play has allowed the Buffs to employ an inside-out offense that forces opponents to pick their poison. With King (48.5), Collier (48.4) and Fortune (43.0) all ranking in the top eight in the Pac-12 in 3-point efficiency, the Buffs may have as many offensive options as any team in the league.
“We don’t have a lot of selfish guys,” Scott said, “When we play as a group, we can be pretty special.”
Only complaint: No sellouts
Through the lens of Colorado’s strong start through 21 games, it has become easier to view last season as an aberration for the Buffs. After all, Boyle averaged 23 wins during his first four seasons, with an NIT bid in his first season followed by the three consecutive NCAA Tournaments.
So while Boyle was clear last week in expressing how appreciative he is of the program’s core group of unwavering fans, he has also expressed frustration at times this season to see large swaths of empty seats at the Coors Events Center.
“This is a really special team, and we have a chance to have a special year in terms of the history of Colorado basketball,” Boyle said. “We’ve got a pretty fun team here that’s fun to watch and fun to support, and we haven’t sold out a game.”
But Boyle’s message to his team has also been to control what it can control while blocking out the noise that seemed to hamper his team at times a season ago. He views last season as a “stubbed toe” for a program that is now surging back toward the high standard it set to re-establish with those lonely wind sprints last spring.
“Colorado basketball is climbing this mountain,” Boyle said. “Last year we slipped on a rock and took a step back. This year, we’re moving forward, and that’s how I look at it.”
