Buffs looking to start practices
expired At noon Thursday, less than one week Before Boyle is set to open preseason practice Ahead of his 11th season At CU. Like the football team, Boyle’s Club still needs to receive permission from BCPH in order to field full-team workouts. Assuming that happens, the Buffs officially will set out on what Almost Certainly will Be An eventful 2020-21 season on
Wednesday.
“They are foaming at the mouth,” Boyle said. “They’re ready to go. I’ve said this many times — this is not about me, or our coaching staff, or the administration, or the Pac-12 Conference. This is all about our players. And young people that we are hired to coach and to mentor. They are the ones that I feel like we owe.
“As long as they’ve acted responsibly, and respectfully, we owe them to let them do what they came here to do. One is to go to school, which they’ve been doing. But the other one is to play basketball, which is what they want to do. We’ll see how the next few days plays out, how the next few weeks plays out and certainly how the season plays out. I’m just going to do the best I can to facilitate that.”
The Oct. 14 start date for preseason practice is predicated by it being 41 days out from the Buffs’ season opener on Nov. 25 at a multiteam event at Kansas State, likely against either Drake or South Dakota State.
Boyle told Buffzone this week his club’s nonconference schedule is nearly complete, but that they are awaiting final word from the Pac-12 regarding the size and scope of the league schedule before filling in the final piece of the nonconference slate. The Pac-12 was planning to move from an 18-game schedule to a 20game schedule this season, and that format is expected to remain intact. However, Boyle said the league also is exploring building safety nets within the schedule calendar in the likely event games are postponed due to coronavirus issues.
“It is being talked about. Our conference is trying to be strategic in how we schedule games, when we schedule games,” Boyle said. “We are definitely going to try and work in opportunities, if a game is postponed or canceled early in the year, can we make it up later in the year? That is definitely something that is on the table. Nothing has been etched in stone yet, but it’s something that’s been talked about.”