YOUNG CU, CSU TEAMS MAY BE AT DANCE SOON

Tad Boyle has done the math in his BOULDER» head, too, several times over. Of the 78 points his Colorado Buffaloes dropped on Dayton late Tuesday night, 71 came from the wrists of sophomores or freshmen. The future isn’t just crazy bright. It’s right here, right now. basketball “We are young,” coach said the CU after men’s his Buffs downed the Flyers 78-73 in the first round of the National Invitation Tournament. His eyes narrowed, the voice downshifting to an iron whisper. “And I’m telling you, we’re going to be in the NCAA Tournament next year.”

Madness? Maybe. But we love the Madness. Heck, we miss the Madness.

Since 2016, we’ve had our noses pressed collectively against the window, watching everybody else and their brother party their tails off. The first round of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament gets underway Thursday morning and it’s without a Colorado school for a third consecutive spring. Since 2000, the NCAA Tournament has been a Colorado-free zone 12 times and four of the last five. So if you’re Boyle, then, why

go out on that limb?

“Why put extra pressure on yourself ?” former college basketball coach and current CBS Sports analyst Pete Gillen asked. Then he laughed. “He must be feeling pretty good about the team to say that.”

And he’s not alone. CU (22-12) has received 96.1 percent of its scoring, 96.9 percent of its rebounds and 97.3 percent of its assists from players other than seniors this season. Up at Colorado State (12-20), first-year coach Niko Medved got 79.1 percent of his points, 88.8 percent of his boards and 76.9 percent of his dimes from guys on track to return in the fall.

“I do think basketball (locally) is on the rise,” Medved said. “I think CU is going to have a terrific team next year. They’ve got a young team, got a lot of that coming back.

“And I think we’re on the rise, too. I don’t (know) if an (NCAA bid) is going to be (ours) next year, but I think that, yeah, that’s the plan.”

• • •

We trusted the Madness. We embraced it for all its hairpin turns, despite the holes it left in our hearts and wallets. At least one Colorado school appeared in four consecutive NCAA tourneys from 2011-14, the longest contiguous stretch of in-state representation since the Big Dance expanded to 64 teams in 1985. But coaching turnover and a paucity of high-end local high school prospects have made consistent Bracketville berths, shall we say, elusive.

“(CU) has had good teams; Tad is a tremendous coach,” Gillen said. “But it’s all about talent. You have to have the horses to run in the derby.”

The Centennial State has produced only six 4-star-or-better prospects since 2010, and only three initially signed with an in-state program, based on the 247Sports database. A state of comparable population, Minnesota, has produced 15 4-stars-orbetter over that same stretch.

“You’re not going to have a ton of players right there in your backyard, like Georgetown with Washington, D.C., or UCLA with Los Angeles or Chicago when DePaul was in its heyday or Michigan and Detroit,” Gillen said. “There are some good players in Colorado, some sleepers — Wyoming, (the Cowboys) will sneak in and get some. But you don’t have great talent in your backyard.”

You have to import. You have to cast a wide net. Which is why Medved is calling from an airport, in between recruiting flights, pitching his program’s future.

“And I remember vividly what it was like when both CU and CSU were in the NCAA Tournament,” he said, “and the level of interest in college basketball was great and the passion from our fan base … it was awesome.”

•••

We knew the Madness. The sights. The sounds. The soul. Despite the present drought, the teens were a solid decade for Big Dancing, relatively speaking. A trio of in-state Division I programs — CU, CSU and Northern Colorado — have reached Bracketville at least once since 2010; the Buffs got four bids, the Rams two. Perspective: CU danced only once from 19702000, CSU just twice.

“People have no idea,” said Boyle, whose Buffs have won 11 of their last 14 and reached the semis of the Pac-12 tourney. “It is difficult to get in that field of 68. Coaches understand that. I don’t know if fans do all the time.

“And it used to be, you win 21 games and you finished among the top 5, top half of a Power 5 league, and you’re in the NCAA Tournament. But that’s not the way it was this year. We need our league — and we’re all a part of it, I’m not blaming the other 11 schools.

“But you look at the way we’ve been playing down the stretch, there’s no question in my mind, we’re an NCAATournament-caliber team. I’m not sitting here and standing on a soapbox, saying that we should’ve been in. I’m just saying — we didn’t even get on the bubble. And our league and our performance in November and December and early January are what caused that.”

Yet the experts can see another college hoops renaissance creeping just around the corner. And closing fast.

“(You’ve got) some great similarities, to me, between CU and CSU,” Gillen said. “Both should be improved next year. Both places are tough to play. I think the home-court advantage is going to help both those teams. The future is very bright for both state schools.”

Credit continuity on the coaching front. Boyle has a contract with 1-year rollovers that runs through at least the 2022-23 season; Medved is also signed through 2023. UNC coach Jeff Linder, who has averaged 24 wins over his last two seasons, is on a deal that runs through 2021.

“I think next year, the (Rams) will be in the top four or five in the conference,” Gillen said of CSU. “(Medved) is really impressive. He’s like (Nuggets coach) Michael Malone — what you see is what you get. Upbeat. Personable. You can’t not like him. He’s been an assistant for a long time and he’s learned the game and he’s got a good staff.”

He’s got a pretty fair ceiling, too. According to Basketball-Reference.com, the average CSU player’s experience this season was only 0.9 full years, as weighed by minutes played — the second greenest roster in the Mountain West to San Jose State (0.6 years per player). Meanwhile, among Pac-12 peers, only Cal (0.8 years) and UCLA (0.7) trotted out less experienced squads this winter than Boyle did at CU (1.0). UNC’s average experience was 1.2 seasons; Denver’s was 1.7; Air Force, 1.5. In other words, there’s room to grow.

And even more room to dream.