McKinley Wright and Keeshawn Barthelemy possess a strong on-court rapport

Tad Boyle has been very vocal about his high expectations for redshirt freshman guard Keeshawn Barthelemy, who spent all of last season practicing with the Buffs and now is ready to compete against opponents other than his own teammates for the first time in 2020-2021.

While no player wants to sit out a year, Barthelemy sees the benefits of him learning the ropes with the Buffs by redshirting last season.

“My redshirt year was a great year," Barthelemy said. "It was a learning experience for me and I learned from everybody, not just McKinley, but being around the guards and learning how to play with the bigs — it was great for my development. Practicing alongside senior point guard McKinley (Wright IV) was big for me in just learning from a great point guard in college basketball."

Barthelemy, along with true freshman forward Jabari Walker and guards Luke O'Brien and Dominique Clifford will be expected to replace the production and minutes lost by the departure of seniors Shane Gatling and Lucas Siewert plus soon-to-be NBA Draft pick Tyler Bey.

Boyle still expressed confidence in the assets he has to call upon from the bench but noted youth vs. experience is the main difference between this year's squad and last year's in terms of depth.

"This year, our depth is going to be based on a lot of younger guys and so it’s still quality — because we’ve got some talented guys, no doubt about it — it’s just there a little bit younger," Boyle said. "And so the experience isn’t there, and therefore you get more mistakes, you get maybe inconsistencies. But we’ve got guys who can make plays, I can tell you that. They’re quality players."

Regarding the potential one-two punch that Wright IV and Barthelemy prospectively can provide for CU this season, Boyle did not spare any praise.

In fact, from an on-court rapport perspective, Boyle called them the best guard backcourt combination he's had at Colorado — yes, including Spencer Dinwiddie and Askia Booker.

“The last time I had that was at Northern Colorado," he said. "We had Will Figures, son of the great Buff Deion Figures, and Devin Beitzel. That was a pretty dynamic backcourt – two first-team all-conference-type guards and they could both really score it and shoot it. Different players, but both were really effective and played off each other really well."

"Keeshawn and Kin can play off each other. I think it’s really going to allow Kin to get off the ball a little bit and be more of a scorer for us. We know he can score the ball for us, but when he’s scoring off the ball rather than on the ball every time, I think it’s good for our team."

Join the conversation on McKinley Wright IV, Keeshawn Barthelemy and the Buffs' corps of freshmen at Buff Nation, the premiere message board community serving countless CU fanatics.

Ultimately, Barthelemy is unproven on the hardwood in actual games. The same could be said for the Buffs' corps of freshmen.

While Boyle continues to express confidence in their ability to contribute in meaningful ways this year, Boyle does have to grapple with a shortened season, specifically in the games before Pac-12 play begins.

Colorado's younger players will have less margin for error due to a lack of bunny games early in the season.

"What makes this year so different than past years, with the compressed schedule, is normally with 13 non-conference games — everybody makes fun of or pooh poohs some of those early games against maybe teams from lower conferences — but those games are so critical in developing depth," Boyle said. "You can get away with some younger guys — give them some minutes, let them play through mistakes and learn from things."

"Whereas when it’s a compressed schedule and you open up with South Dakota State — guess what, you don’t have that luxury. We play K-State in the second game — you do not have that luxury of developing that depth because you don’t have inferior opponents. We’ve got real opponents that we’ve got to beat.”

Last week, senior forward D'Shawn Schwartz said that Colorado's Class of 2020 reminded him about the 2017 class he was a part of, containing the likes of Wright IV, Bey and Evan Battey.

Battey on Monday was quick to agree with that likening, specifically in how the freshmen seek out competition with the older players.

While they'll still need to prove themselves, Battey believes the blueprint is there for those players to do just that.

“We went at the upperclassmen every day — George King, Namon Wright, Tory Miller — we wanted to compete with them and I see the same things from these freshmen right now. They want to compete with us older guys. It’s honestly insane how much I’m already proud of them."

"I love them, I spend a lot of time with them and this pandemic has really brought us closer together as a team. I really felt like I connected with my young guys.”