BuffZone’s Pat Rooney explained the ethos of the “expected script” for the 2023-24 season for Colorado basketball — sharing the ball and being a team rather than a collection of highly-touted recruits collecting stats and not contributing to winning basketball — following the Buffs’ 75-57 trouncing of Towson in Boulder on November 6.
“In basketball, if you share the ball, usually good things happen,” Rooney prefaced before saying, “That ethos is part of the expected script this season for the Colorado men’s basketball team, and it certainly was on display during the first impression of 2023-24. The Buffaloes ran away from Towson to post a 75-57 victory in the season opener on Monday night at the Events Center, amassing 21 assists along the way.”
That ethos wasn’t present enough during the first half of a game Colorado was only winning by four at halftime. Poor shooting was the primary culprit, with the Buffs shooting 0/7 from beyond the arc, but CU was not creating the same type of easy looks in the first half that they did in the second half.
Evidently, Tad Boyle touched a nerve at halftime and got through to his veteran leaders, KJ Simpson and Tristan da Silva, who combined for 35 points.
Colorado basketball successful in men’s and women’s realm
Not only did Boyle’s Buffs get the job done in Boulder, but JR Payne’s women’s squad beat the No. 1 team in the country, Kim Mulkey’s defending national champion LSU Tigers, at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas in their neutral site opener.
With both teams picking up opening-night victories and following in the footsteps of one Coach Prime, Boulder is quickly becoming one of the country’s hottest brands — and that will only continue as the basketball programs continue to deliver with a broader audience than Colorado is used to because of the larger-than-life head coach on the gridiron.