Lawson Lovering felt a pop near his knee, the kind that any athlete dreads. Right away, he knew that something wasn’t right.
“I’m definitely going to be out for a little bit,” the then-freshman center for Colorado remembered thinking to himself.
Lovering’s initial, visceral fear was right. During a routine Monday practice, the 7-foot-1 Lovering had suffered an MCL injury that ended his freshman season in late January. As he enters his sophomore season, he views it as a temporary setback, a painful-but-ultimately-helpful ordeal.
Between his towering height and his ballyhooed recruiting profile – he was the No 60 prospect in 2021, making him the highest-rated player in what was a top-10 recruiting class for the Buffs – Lovering entered last season with no shortage of expectations. His on-court impact was relatively muted, as he averaged 1.9 points and 1.9 rebounds in 10.7 minutes per game off the Colorado bench.
In a Jan. 22 loss against UCLA, though, Lovering experienced what felt like a breakthrough, piecing together what he believed to be his best game of his first college season, with two points, two rebounds, an assist and a block against a top-10 opponent. That hopeful feeling was short-lived. Two days later, his season was over.
“I had never been in that position ever,” Lovering said. “I had never had an injury like that, where I just couldn’t go on a basketball court. I wanted to go dunk. I wanted to shoot jump shots. But I had to stand still.”
It didn’t take long for Lovering to begin to embrace aspects of an unenviable predicament. He spent extra time in the weight room with strength and conditioning coach Steve Englehart to add some muscle on what was a lanky, relatively undeveloped frame coming into college from Cheyenne, Wyo. Without the same time-intensive basketball-related commitments, his grades improved. From his place on the sideline during practices and games, he gained a different and valuable perspective of what was unfolding on the court in front of him. As Lovering described it, it gave him “an extra offseason.” It didn’t hurt that the recovery process was only so strenuous. Before summer even began, Lovering said, his knee was back to 100%.
At times, he turned inward and a young player identified some of his own shortcomings, particularly from a mental standpoint after seeing how a sharpened, focused mindset separated great players from average ones at the college level.
“It’s an ongoing journey,” Lovering said. “That’s my main focus sometimes on the floor. You feel yourself slipping and start to have a bad practice, but you have to regroup and refocus. It’s just a constant battle.”
Injury aside, the way Lovering’s freshman year transpired wasn’t unusual. Big men often face the most challenging transition from high school to college basketball, as players who were able to overpower and overwhelm smaller, less talented foes suddenly have to adjust to going against opponents who are their physical peers – if not superiors – on a daily basis, be it in practice or games. Even at Lovering’s height, which makes him one of the tallest players in Division I basketball, that acclimation can be rough.
Heading into his sophomore season, there are elements of his game that his coaches like, the kind of skills that already make him a valued contributor. Colorado head coach Tad Boyle has praised Lovering for his ball-screen defense, his rim-protecting ability, his hands and his finishing around the basket. There’s room to improve, of course, from his outside shot to some of the game’s mental aspects.
A Buffs team that lost key frontcourt pieces from last season will need Lovering to progress quickly, as he’s expected to shoulder more minutes for a squad that will rely on him much more than it did last season.
“Lawson's a guy that, I've said it before, he's very difficult on himself and so when things don't go his way, sometimes the head goes down, the shoulder slump,” Boyle said. “We can't have that this year. He's got to be able to play through mistakes. When you got Evan Battey there and Lawson’s struggling it's easy to have a fallback guy. Well, we don't have a fallback guy this year, Evan is gone. Lawson is going to have to play and play through mistakes.”
Boyle is confident that Lovering has made those strides, adding that “CU fans did not see the real Lawson Lovering last year.”
His promising sophomore feels the same way.
“I’m 100% better than that version of myself,” Lovering said. “I had a lot of time to work. I definitely surpassed myself before the summer even started. I think I’m a lot better than last year.”
