Tad Boyle Might Have His Best Team Yet

Colorado picked second in Pac-12 preseason poll

Tad Boyle's CU career started with a bang -- three straight 20-plus-win season, three straight NCAA Tournament appearances and a general sense that he "had it going" at Colorado. 

Since 2015, though, things have been significantly worse. Until, maybe now. 

Colorado got nine first-place votes in the preseason Pac-12 poll and wound up picked second, barely behind Oregon. CU will likely begin the season in the Top 25 and will have every reason to expect it will play in the NCAA Tournament again this season. 

“There’s a lot of excitement, and I’d be lying if I said we didn’t see it and we don’t get happy about it,” CU point guard McKinley Wright told the Pac-12 Network. “But our main thing is just trying to block out the noise, trying to block out everybody, and come to practice every day and work. We’ve still got some work to do. We’ve got to get better, and we’re going to try to hang our hat on defense and rebounding.”

Wright and Tyler Bay were picked to the 10-man preseason All-Pac-12 first team. They were both first-team all-conference players last year, making CU the first team to return two all-conference players since Cal in 2009. 

In other words, this is the best team (on paper) Boyle has had at CU. The other candidate for that distinction would be his second team (2011-12), which went 24-12 overall, 11-7 in the Pac-12, won the Pac-12 tournament, and won an NCAA Tournament game before losing to Baylor in the second round. 

That team had two NBA players on it in Spencer Dinwiddie and Andre Roberson, and somehow avoided facing a ranked team until the NCAA Tournament started. 

This roster may or may not have two NBA players on it, but it's a deep veteran team with size on the wing and inside. And as long as the bizarre 3-point shooting woes from last season don't filter into this one, Tad Boyle will have it going once again.