One of our country’s greatest sports has one of the most bafflingly underwhelming season kickoffs, so you can be forgiven for not realizing this, but the 2022-23 men’s college basketball season begins tonight.

For Colorado, the journey in year 13 under head coach Tad Boyle begins with a 6:30 p.m. local tipoff against UC Riverside at the CU Events Center. Beyond that night, though, what can we expect from the Buffs this season? Who are the players and figures that will tell the story of the season, the ones who will determine whether this season is a success or a failure? Who are some of the new faces that will become fixtures?

There’s no shortage of questions facing Colorado, particularly after it lost its top three scorers from last season, so before the first minute of the first game elapses, let’s take a deeper look at the Buffs and what they might be able to do.

Preseason rankings

KenPom: 61st of 363 Division I teams

Bart Torvik: 80th

Sagarain: 53rd

TeamRankings: 57th

Pac-12 preseason media poll: 6th

ESPN: 9th in the Pac-12

CBS: 9th in the Pac-12

The guards

Compared to the wings and the frontcourt, Colorado’s backcourt doesn’t have nearly as much to replace, but there’s still a relative level of uncertainty about how this group will fare. The obvious standout here is KJ Simpson, the 6-foot-2 sophomore guard and the former top-100 recruit who has been on several lists of breakout candidates nationally for this upcoming season. Last season, he earned all-Pac-12 freshman honors after averaging 7.4 points and a team-high 2.7 assists per game. He should only get better in his second college season, particularly as he assumes a larger workload. Last season, he used 24.1% of the team’s possessions while he was on the court, according to KenPom data, behind only Jabari Walker among Colorado players. This season, he is likely to be the go-to creator in the backcourt.

Of course, the guard group isn’t limited to Simpson. Boyle added a pair of Ivy League transfers in Jalen Gabbidon (Yale) and Ethan Wright (Princeton) in the offseason, both of whom should add some experience to a roster in need of it. Gabbidon was the Ivy League defensive player of the year in 2019-20, a skill that should translate well enough to the Pac-12. Last season at Yale, he averaged 1.4 steals per game. Wright projects as a steady outside shooter, having made 39.5% of his 3-pointers last season, though his shot has looked flat in the limited glimpses we’ve gotten of him in the preseason.

Julian Hammond III averaged a modest 2.9 points and 1.1 assists per game last season as a freshman, but the Cherry Creek graduate could see his role and playing time grow a bit on a reconfigured roster,

The wings

While this group doesn’t have an obvious standout like the guards, there’s some quality depth. Nique Clifford emerged as a reliable contributor last season, going from little-used bench player as a freshman to a member of the Buffs’ rotation as a sophomore. In that time, he averaged 6.7 points and 4.6 rebounds per game while shooting 40% from 3. He should be one of the team’s more dependable players this season.

Luke O’Brien saw his minutes more than triple last season and he stands as one of the team’s more likely breakout candidates for 2022-23. In the exhibition victory against Nebraska last Sunday, he had eight rebounds in 17 minutes, even as he struggled with his shot, going just one of five from the field. Given his size – 6-foot-8 and 213 pounds – and skill set, he’s an intriguing piece for Boyle. After sitting out all of last season with a medical redshirt, Javon Ruffin is another player who can fill in for some of the lost production from last season. He scored nine points in just nine minutes against Nebraska and made three of his four 3s before exiting the game with a minor injury.

J’Vonne Hadley comes in from one of the best junior college programs in the country in Indian Hills Community College, where he was an NJCAA first-team all-American after averaging 10.9 points and 6.2 rebounds per game. Quincy Allen remains an all-too-intriguing player, whether it’s from being a former four-star recruit or the athletic feats in practice about which his teammates boasted all preseason. After redshirting last season, though, the 6-foot-8 freshman didn’t appear in Colorado’s exhibition win.

The bigs

This is where things get a little bit thin, with just three real, formidable options, only one of which is a proven Pac-12 player. However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t potential.

Tristan da Silva’s the obvious starting point here, as the team’s leading returning scorer at 9.4 points per game. The 6-foot-9 junior will get no shortage of playing time and opportunities to rack up some numbers. Despite his size, he wasn’t a particularly effective rebounder last season, but he’s a smart and versatile player who can stretch the floor and keep opponents on their heels.

The next player in line is Lawson Lovering, a former top-60 recruit who will always be someone to keep an eye on, if for no other reason than him being seven feet tall. Lovering had limited production last season, with 1.9 points and 1.9 rebounds in 10.7 minutes per game last season before a knee injury sidelined him for the Buffs’ final 15 games. He’s still lacking some polish, which isn’t unexpected for a young big man, but at the very least, he can alter shots of opposing big men and slashing guards.

Joe Hurlburt, a 6-foot-11 freshman, was a top-150 recruit in the 2022 class and should see more time on the court than he would on a team with more established post players. Between him and Lovering, Colorado certainly doesn’t lack size. It’s just a matter of how that stature translates to positive contributions and team success.

Projected leading scorer

da Silva is probably the safer option, but I’ll go with Simpson. The California native is going to have the ball in his hands more than any other player this season and we got a preview of as much in the exhibition against Nebraska, with Simpson taking a team-high 15 shots. The next-closest player, Hadley, attempted nine.

If he’s going to be such an instrumental part of the Buffs’ offense, he’ll need to become a much more efficient player than he was as a freshman, when he shot 37.7% from the field and 25.4% from 3. With a year of college experience under his belt, I’m betting on some of the necessary improvements being made and Simpson morphing into an all-conference-caliber player.

Most intriguing non-conference game

This is a game Colorado will almost certainly lose, but the Nov. 13 meeting with Tennessee in Nashville stands out. The Volunteers are No. 11 in both national preseason polls and are a dark-horse pick to make the Final Four. They validated that belief in the preseason when they waxed No. 2 Gonzaga, 99-80, in an exhibition, a contest in which Tennessee outscored the Zags by a 49-26 margin in the second half.

How Colorado fares in that game – namely, how it looks and how much it ultimately loses by in what’s a neutral-site game in name only – could provide an important early glimpse at how this team might be able to do against some of the Pac-12’s best.

Newcomer to watch

I’ve been really impressed with the limited glimpses I’ve gotten of Hadley. He was excellent against Nebraska, scoring 11 points – making him just one of two Buffs players, along with Simpson, to finish in double figures – and pulling down a team-high eight rebounds. Top junior-college players translate better to the Division I level than many might realize and Hadley has the pedigree of someone who should excel at a bigger program and on a bigger stage. He’s been around strong competition all his life, having grown up in Minnesota playing against Chet Holmgren and Jalen Suggs.

Gabbidon and Wright both have more of a track record, but they project more as role players, at least as I see it. With Hadley, there’s more upside.

Key stat

In nine of Boyle’s 12 seasons leading the program, the Buffs have won at least 20 games. Perhaps this year isn’t one of them, but this is a program that has successfully overcome the turnover that plagues anyone in college basketball. In those dozen years, Colorado has finished with a losing record just once and even then, it was just two games below .500.

Biggest areas of improvement

Three immediately stand out. First, if Colorado wants to get out in transition as much as it says it wants to, it’s going to have to get steals at a higher clip. Only one player on the roster who played for the Buffs last season averaged more than 0.6 steals per game last season and as a team, Colorado got steals on 10.9% of its defensive possessions, the worst mark in the Pac-12. This is one area where Gabbidon could potentially be a big help.

It will also need to limit turnovers of its own. It turned the ball over on 20.2% of its possessions last season, the second-worst figure in the Pac-12. Three of the worst offenders in that area – Simpson, Hammond and Lovering – are still with the team.

Lastly, it has to get more efficient scoring inside the arc. Its 47.5% mark on 2-pointers ranked it among the bottom three Pac-12 teams last season. Given the questions surrounding the frontcourt, this might be a lingering issue.

Best-case scenario

Simpson makes a huge jump and exceeds even some of the more optimistic predictions, da Silva is a constant down low, the newcomers fill their new roles splendidly and a few returners capably make up for some of the lost production from last season. In the process, Colorado scores a few upsets – beating UCLA and Oregon at home – and finishes fourth in the Pac-12 standings, behind only UCLA, Arizona and Oregon. It earns the sixth NCAA Tournament appearance in 13 years under Boyle and once there, it wins a game before falling just short of the program’s first Sweet 16 since 1969.

Worst-case scenario

We won’t take injuries into account because a) that would make this a little too easy and b) projecting harm on college-aged athletes is more than a little weird.

Colorado struggles out of the gate, getting blown out by Tennessee, losing two of three games in Myrtle Beach and getting toppled by in-state rival Colorado State to finish the non-conference schedule at 7-4. From there, the Buffs fall well short of the league’s upper echelon and struggle to beat much of the Pac-12’s middle class (Washington State, Stanford, etc.).

The absences of Jabari Walker, Evan Battey and Keeshawn Barthelemy are glaring for much of the season while Simpson struggles to assume the duty of the go-to offensive option, the Ivy League transfers and some of the other new arrivals look overmatched, and younger players like Lovering, Hammond and Ruffin don’t show ample enough improvement. By the end of the year, the Buffs finish several games under .500 and post the worst record of Boyle’s tenure.

Projected final record

18-13

I won’t try to guess what they do in the Pac-12 Tournament and beyond since I have no idea what those matchups would be, but given what we have in front of us, I’ll say Boyle will have this team cohesive and competitive, even if it may take a little bit for things to solidify. That’s likely not a record that will earn an NCAA Tournament berth, but it’s enough to get Colorado to the NIT and boost hopes for what the program might be able to do moving forward with a roster that’s set to lose only two players while bringing in what could be a strong recruiting class.