Head coaches Tad Boyle and JR Payne have built two compelling rosters for the 2023-24 season.

On the men’s side, Boyle has added size and an Evan Battey-like presence with Eddie Lampkin while keeping the returning talents of KJ Simspon, Tristan da Silva and the many depth pieces Boyle has in his rotation. For Payne, she brought on two veterans to her already established veteran team with skilled transfers with Sara-Rose Smith (Missouri) and Maddie Nolan (Michigan).

Going into every season there’s high expectations of what teams can accomplish, what their ceiling is. With the new and veteran resources on both the men’s and women’s rosters, both teams look poised to have promising seasons.

College basketball is a fragile game, making predictions even harder to pinpoint. However, with the tournament run of the women’s team and the maturation of the men’s team that has been infused with new talent, there’s a high chance both programs have successful seasons ahead.

With the start of the season just right around the corner, Boyle, Payne and their players met with reporters on Tuesday to provide further insight on the inner workings of their teams, expectations and much more.

Here are five takeaways from CU’s basketball media day:

Boyle wore a long-sleeved shirt during Tuesday’s practice that had “family” on the front in bold lettering. Both Boyle and Payne uphold a family-oriented atmosphere by virtue of developing relationships and developing players since they were freshmen. It’s one of the reasons why players like Tristan da Silva and Jaylyn Sherrod came back to play another year.

While the transfer portal has its benefits and can dramatically alter and, or improve rosters, as seen with head coach Deion Sanders’ football program, it’s increased the financial value of players exponentially in the new age of name, image and likeness. Boyle of course utilized the transfer portal with Lampkin coming in from TCU, but he prefers to recruit freshmen to grow within the program.

“There’s a couple of reasons,” Boyle said. “One of the reasons is with the new NIL rules, it's a whole lot more expensive to recruit out of the transfer portal,” Boyle said. “That’s just a fact, you talk to any coach. That's not the only reason. The main reason, I believe, is that there's nothing wrong with transferring. Transferring, it's been a part of college athletics the 30 years I've been part of it. …

“There's legitimate reasons for kids to transfer, but there's always some sort of, in my opinion, something that didn't work out at the previous place. And what was that? There's a lot of things you have to dig through in the transfer portal that you might be taking on somebody else's baggage. And I'd rather not take that risk if I don't have to.”

Boyle lost big men Lawson Lovering, Nique Clifford and Quincy Allen to the portal last year and resupplied that size with 6-foot-11 Lampkin. In addition the Buffs brought in freshmen, 6-foot-9 Bangot Dak and 6-foot-10 Assane Diop who will maybe one day develop into a da Silva-like presence.

“I like to watch kids develop when I see Tristan da Silva now as a senior, and I have, recollections of him as a freshman and how far he's come physically, emotionally, mentally, academically, and to see him get his degree from Colorado. And then I was just talking to Bangot Dak, one of our freshmen here after practice today, I said, Bangot, like, his head is spinning right now. … I just want you to watch Tristan da Silva because Tristan has been in the program for four years, like he's not thinking out there, he's playing. That's where you're gonna get.

“And so, again, the family portion of this program is the young guys come in and learn from the old guys.”

For Payne, her 23-24 roster possess both veterans who have been with the programs since the beginning of their college careers and portal players that add experienced skills to the Buffs already veteran team. Above all however, freshman or transfer, each of those players must have a work ethic and drive to uphold the program’s standards.

“When people were talking about NIL several years ago before it started, we were concerned that it would open a Pandora's box that would be very difficult to close,” Payne said. “Only in that it would be seismic changes that people have to be very quickly be able to adapt to and adjust to. It definitely is changing the landscape of college recruiting for us. We actually just got a couple of really big commitments that I can't talk about yet, but we're very excited about some of the freshmen we have coming next year.

“And then also a balance, though, I mean, there are times that you're going to need to plug a spot on your roster with a portal player. I think for us, we always want to recruit not just great basketball players, but great people that fit us culturally that fit Boulder, and can really thrive here and that's I think moving forward gonna be a really good balance of freshmen plus transfers. We'll always do our homework and will always try to find players that value the same things we do, but for us, it's going to be I think a balance between the two.”