Pat Rooney: CU Buffs 3 extra points (April 8, 2024)
Apr. 8—BuffZone writer Pat Rooney discusses three topics surrounding CU Buffs athletics as basketball dives into spring recruiting while spring football practice heats up.
Heir a-Perry-ment?
The Colorado men's basketball team absolutely has to add some playing experience to the mix while shopping in the transfer portal this spring. Yet a good start at restoring confidence that the return to the rugged Big 12 Conference next season won't be a rude re-welcoming would be to land prep guard Trent Perry.
The Buffs very nearly landed Perry last fall. The four-star, 6-foot-4 combo guard out of Studio City, Calif., visited CU in September before ultimately signing with USC. But Perry recently reopened his recruiting after now-former USC coach Andy Enfield left the Trojans for SMU (that move has turned out to be one heck of a coaching domino, as former Arkansas coach Eric Musselman landed at USC, while Arkansas in turn lured John Calipari away from Kentucky).
In a recent interview with 247Sports, Perry didn't list Colorado among the schools he has heard from since hitting the open market again. But CU is all but certain to make a pitch to Perry. Head coach Tad Boyle and his staff has two open scholarships to work with this spring, a number that could grow with the pending NBA draft decisions of Cody Williams and KJ Simpson.
The Perry situation is the sort that has been a boon to the Buffs in recent years. Former point guard McKinley Wright IV was signed with Dayton in the spring of 2017 before former Flyers coach Archie Miller left the program for Indiana, a move that eventually led Wright to CU. Simpson was an Arizona signee when Miller's brother, Sean Miller, was forced out at Arizona following the 2020-21 season, sending Simpson to Boulder.
Foundation repair
One way or another, and for good or ill, the CU men's team next season will lean heavily on players recruited into the program the past few years. The women's team will have to go a different direction in its pursuit to maintain its newfound status as a national power.
Last week, freshmen Jadyn Atchison, Lele Tanuvasa and Ruthie Loomis-Gotl entered the transfer portal, joining other youngsters who already made that plunge in Mikayla Johnson and Brianna McLeod. Kennedy Sanders is the only player from the five-player 2023 recruiting class expected to return next season, alongside veterans Kindyll Wetta, Frida Formann, Aaronette Vonleh and Sara-Rose Smith. Guard Tameiya Sandler still has a season of eligibility remaining and could return as well.
CU already has the makings of a solid starting lineup. Coach JR Payne and her staff own a commendable track record of finding seamless reinforcements in the transfer portal. There's no reason to think that won't continue. Yet while the jury remains out on Sanders' eventual impact on the program, the Buffs will go into next season having basically struck out with two consecutive recruiting classes. That certainly no longer tells the entire recruiting story year-to-year thanks to the transfer portal. Yet it remains a difficult way to establish a culture and sustain success.
Spring preview
We're less than three weeks away from the Colorado spring football game on April 27. It's probably foolish to dive too deeply into the roster and personnel outlook at this point. Too much moving and shaking still is likely to transpire before the 2024 Buffs reconvene for preseason practice later this summer.
It's too early to put the pressure on any one coach or position group, but it's likely no secret that all eyes should be on new offensive line coach Phil Loadholt. At this early juncture the Buffs project to be similar as last season with strong skill position players on both sides of the ball balanced by big-time questions up front. That discrepancy isn't more glaring anywhere than on offense, where CU will boast one of the top quarterbacks in the nation in Shedeur Sanders, who will operate behind a revamped offensive line trying to make amends for a unit that left Sanders battered and beaten by the end of last season. Any hope of a dramatic improvement in the win column all but requires vastly improved O-line play.
