After a roughly five-month vacancy following the departure of Nate Tomlinson, Colorado men's hoops has settled on a new director of player development in Zach Ruebesam, a familiar face to the program.

Tomlinson had previously served as director of player development for two seasons, while back in April, he left Colorado to assume an assistant coaching position with Kim English, himself a CU coaching alum, who was named head coach at George Mason in late March.

Ruebesam, a CU graduate, Class of 2016, served as the Buffaloes' student manager from 2012-16 and later coached with Team Colorado, the Buffs' alumni unit that participated in The Basketball Tournament in 2019.

Boyle and Ruebesam had been in contact over the last few months, culminating with Monday's official announcement welcoming him to Boulder.

"I’d had conversations with coach Boyle throughout the summer, when they were going through the process of (interviewing) different candidates," Ruebesam said. "It really got serious into August. I had an official interview with a panel and luckily enough for me, coach Boyle felt really comfortable with me, I had a great interview with the panel and he offered me the job a couple weeks ago.”

Over the last few years, Ruebesam has cut his teeth in a number of coaching capacities.

He joins the Buffaloes having previously served as an assistant at Belmont Abbey in North Carolina for two years, assuming recruiting coordinator duties this past 2020-2021 season.

Prior to that, he was on staff with Rodney Billups at DU as director of player development and later director of operations.

Having accrued coaching experience both on the court as well as from an operational and managerial standpoint, Ruebesam is excited to put it all together in his new gig with the Buffs.

"I’ve spent the past five years away from Colorado doing everything in my power preparing me for this exact position," he said.

Monday was Ruebesam's first day on the job with the Buffaloes and in the coming days, he'll continue to familiarize himself with the folks in the greater CU administrative world as well as up and down Colorado's roster.

Moving forward, he'll sit down with Boyle to discuss how he can start making an immediate impact while generally speaking, Ruebesam plans to have multiple irons in the fire with respect to his day-to-day tasks with the team.

"I think the biggest thing with the student-athletes and coaching staff, is to make sure everything is running efficiently and it’s up to (Boyle's) standard in terms of working on some scheduling and working on former players relations," he said.

"I’m going to be helping (Director of Operations) Bill Cartun with anything he needs, (associate head) coach (Mike) Rohn with anything he needs visit-wise and recruiting-wise — I’m going to be wearing many hats. That’s great for me, because it’s what I’ve done for the past five years.”

From a recruiting standpoint, Ruebesam brings experience of having served as Belmont Abbey's program coordinator in the immediate past.

While there, North Carolina, Georgia and Florida were states he looked to establish a recruiting footprint in.

Opening up untapped recruiting centers to the Buffaloes, such as the aforementioned states, will be an early priority of his as he gets settled in Boulder.

But first and foremost, Ruebesam hops to be an asset for the student-athletes currently playing for the Buffs.

“I wasn’t fortunate enough to wear the Colorado jersey, but I was a student manager (at CU) for four years," he said. "Some of my best friends are former players, so I’ve had the same sort of conversations that these guys are having. I’ve seen guys after practice on a bad day and I’ve seen guys after practice on a good day."

"I’m hoping to be able to lean on my former experiences of being a manager, to talk to some of those guys and help them guide this process of college basketball.”