Beginning this upcoming Friday, Aug. 13 and through the weekend, the 2021-2022 Buffaloes will get their first shot at facing competition other than themselves during a practice setting.
Early Thursday morning, Tad Boyle and Co. depart for Central America, specifically, San Jose, Costa Rica, where the Buffs will play four exhibition games against Costa Rican professional basketball teams.
Per NCAA regulations, every four years basketball programs are permitted to take an international tour, which allows for the team to conduct 10 organized practices and play exhibition matches.
Four years ago, then-freshmen McKinley Wright IV, D'Shawn Schwartz, Tyler Bey and the 2017-2018 Buffs travelled to Italy, the last such international tour the Buffs have participated in.
Fast forward to now and there undoubtedly similarities between the two trips, namely in that Colorado's roster has flipped considerably from veteran-led to underclassman-heavy.
With Wright IV and Bey trying their luck in the NBA Summer League and Schwartz (George Mason) and Dallas Walton (Wake Forest) having joined other programs as graduate transfers, Boyle brings a largely green squad down to Costa Rica.
Of course, Colorado's two seniors, forward Evan Battey and guard Eli Parquet, have been around the block a few times, but the Buffs' returning underclassmen — namely point guard Keeshawn Barthelemy and forwards Jabari Walker and Tristan da Silva — despite getting their feet wet last year, averaged collectively only 11.6 minutes per game.
Walker and da Silva's fellow second-year freshmen guards, Nique Clifford and Luke O'Brien, played an average of just 4.6 minutes per contest in 2020-2021.
That said, all of the aforementioned players have at least been tested, the same of which could not be said for Colorado's sizable Class of 2021.
Center Lawson Lovering and guards K.J. Simpson and Julian Hammond will be walking into their first competition at the collegiate level.
Notably, Boyle said at Colorado's Wednesday morning practice, the team's final before departing for Costa Rica, that freshman forward Quincy Allen would not partake in any of the four exhibition games due to an unspecified hip injury.
Similarly, freshman guard Javon Ruffin has been sidelined this summer and will not play.
That said, Boyle is eager to take a look at what Simpson, Lovering and Hammond III can do against actual competition, although, granted, the Buffs still do not know who exactly they'll be playing in any of their four games.
All that Boyle, his coaches and players know opponent-wise is that they will be Puerto Rican professional teams currently in the playoffs.
“I want to see what we have, I want to see who can play through mistakes — I want to see when the lights come on and we’re playing someone different, who can handle those situations and how do they handle them," Boyle said.
Boyle admitted that this summer's 10 practices have been cut of a different cloth than in the immediate years past.
Specifically, Boyle has had to navigate a far younger roster, a good chunk of which is new to college basketball and the Buffs' method of operating entirely.
"It’s a lot more teaching and a lot more repetition," Boyle said. "The approach does change from a veteran team with seven seniors to a team with two seniors, without a doubt...We do more teaching and probably spend more time on fundamentals and situational things."
When the Buffaloes return to Boulder in just over a week's time, Boyle plans to be able to gauge the strengths and weaknesses of his unit that lost six scholarship seniors at the end of last season, replacing them with five true freshmen.
"What do we have to do now from Aug. 19 when we come back to November when we play games? What areas do we really need to focus on — that’s what I’m going to learn from this trip," he said.
Colorado's first exhibition game will tipoff Friday, Aug. 13 at 8 p.m. MST. The game(s) will be streamed through FloHoops Stream, with monthly subscriptions beginning at $12.50. Click here to make an account and sign up.
