Yesterday, the Pac-12 preseason media poll was released and Colorado placed seventh in the league, with UCLA, which swept the Buffs in both meetings last season, coming in first place.

Arizona State, Oregon and Stanford followed behind, also receiving first place votes, while Arizona and USC placed above the Buffaloes at fifth and sixth.

For Tad Boyle and senior point guard McKinley Wright IV, being predicted as a middle-of-the-pack team is all too familiar. If anything, it serves as motivation for a team with high internal expectations that don't seem to match what outside voices think for the 2020-2021 season.

The perception around the basketball program at CU has clearly changed much since last year, when the Buffs were edged just three points by Oregon as favorites to win a league title for the 2019-2020 season.

It doesn't take too much deep thinking to reason why; the loss of Tyler Bey plus two additional seniors in Lucas Siewert and Shane Gatling, as well as an ugly five-game losing streak to the end of last year has outside expectations for the Buffs understandably mediocre at best.

After all, Colorado will need to replace the 28 points, 14.8 boards and 23.4 minutes per game that Bey, Gatling and Siewert collectively averaged last year.

Ultimately, for a Colorado team looking to re-establish its identity following a total collapse late last season, plus the need for untested true freshmen to step up and provide quality minutes, it might be better for the Buffs to start off as underdogs.

"I'm continuing to play with a chip on my shoulder and we've got other guys who want to step up and have bigger roles than they've had in the past," Wright IV said. "There's chips on all of our shoulders and we want to continue to prove that we belong and that we're one of the best teams in this conference."

For Boyle, who now has a decade under his belt at the helm in Boulder, seeing his squad predicted to finish

"Preseason polls are what they are and we're going to use it to our advantage," he said. Depending on where we're picked — I just know from being in Colorado now going into year 11 — we're usually at our best when people are sleeping on us. And I think people are sleeping on us a little bit this year."

At the end of the day, Colorado's ability to find ways to replace Bey's presence, points and rebounds effectively will be critical.

Wright IV explained that two newcomers to the program in particular have been working to fill Bey's shoes.

"We've got a couple of guys that are actually playing really well at Tyler's spot," he said. "Jabari Walker, our true freshman, is a tremendous athlete and lead shot blocker for us...Jeriah Horne, from Tulsa, can stretch the floor for us and guard multiple positions."

"Another true freshman is Tristan da Silva — he can shoot the three, so we've got a lot of guys filling for that spot right now."

While plugging the holes caused by Bey's departure will doubtless be critical if Colorado looks to win over 20 games this season, Wright IV knows he also has to tighten his own bolts.

Turnovers have consistently been a weak point in his game; last year, his assist to turnover ratio was 1.65, up from the 1.54 ratio he registered in 2018-2019. As a true freshman, his figure was 1.86.

But this offseason, in large part at the direction of various NBA scouts and front office executives he met with when flirting with the Draft, Wright IV has paid an increased amount of attention to cleaning up his game.

"I've taken some leaps in a maturity sense, even from last year," he said. "...I've watched film with a number of different people on reads I can make, so I've matured in that sense about making better decision, easier decisions and watching a lot of film. Film has helped me a lot more than I ever thought."

As the Buffs prepare to begin their final season anchored by the talented recruiting class of 2017, Boyle already has began to reflect on what it meant to coach a player like Wright IV.

"There's a lot of picture of Josh Scott in our building, who to me was the epitome of what a student-athlete is," Boyle said. "...I remember thinking that I might not be lucky enough to ever coach another young man like Josh Scott, and then along comes McKinley Wright."

"They're two totally different players, two totally different kids from different backgrounds but they are cut of the same cloth when it comes to just being the epitome of what it means to be a Colorado Buffalo basketball player."