Boyle not pleased by news season starts road-heavy

BOULDER» Generally, Tad Boyle neither disparages nor lauds the intricacies of a basketball schedule. The Colorado men’s basketball coach has been consistent in this approach, and at the end of the day the 30-game regular season schedule will include 18 Pac-12 games — nine at home and nine on the road.

However, when the Pac12 released its weekly pairings for the 2018-19 season on Monday, Boyle couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow.

When the Buffs tip off the Pac-12 slate at either Arizona or Arizona State in early January, it will mark the fourth consecutive season they have begun league play on the road. It also will be the second time in three seasons CU has played five of its first seven Pac-12 games on the road.

“You’d like to think that at some point that would run full circle, but it hasn’t,” Boyle said. “We just have to keep waiting year to year. I have some thoughts on that, but my thoughts don’t really matter when it comes to that. It is what it is. We have to live with it and there’s nothing we can do about it. Play them as they come.”

In the four seasons from 2015-16 through the upcoming season, no Pac-12 team has started every league schedule on the road, or at home for that matter, except the Buffs and their run of four straight league openers on the road. The 2018-19 season will be CU’s eighth in the Pac-12.