Committee approach on the glass on deck for the Buffs this season
As is almost always the case under head coach Tad Boyle, Colorado expects to be a strong rebounding team this season.
Exactly who will lead that charge on the glass remains to be seen. More likely, and much like last season, it will be a rebounding-by-committee approach for the 2023-24 Buffs.
On Tuesday at the CU Events Center, Boyle held court at Colorado’s annual basketball media day amid heightening expectations for his club. After being selected fifth in the Pac-12 Conference preseason media poll last week, the Buffs narrowly missed a spot in the AP preseason top 25 on Monday, finishing as the second program among others receiving votes.
Freshman Cody Williams is CU’S most highly-touted recruit in decades, and he’s surrounded by a cast of battle-tested veterans led by Tristan da Silva. Yet in order to return to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2021, the Buffs again plan to lean heavily on the Boyle- era tenets of defense and rebounding.
In terms of the rebounding, the Buffs have remained impressively consistent in recent seasons, despite balancing seasons with dominant, top- of-theconference rebounders like Tyler Bey and Jabari Walker with seasons like last year, when no CU player topped six per game yet the Buffs still led the Pac-12 in defensive rebounding percentage (.749) while ranking fourth in average rebound margin (plus-3.6).
“Last year, as a team over the course of the season, we rebounded 36% of our misses. If we missed 100 shots, we got 36 offensive rebounds,” Boyle said. “In the scrimmage on Saturday, we rebounded 21% of our missed shots. That’s the 15% we got to make up. Thirty-six percent is a good number. I’ll live with that. But 21% is not. We’ve got to close that gap.
“That’s a function of the five- out (offense). But it’s also a function of our not going and rebounding the ball.”
Walker led the Pac-12 in rebounding two seasons ago, but after he moved on to the Portland Trail Blazers, a more committee-like approach kept the Buffs competitive on the glass last year.
In his first season with the Buffs, J’vonne Hadley posted a team-best 5.9 rebounds per game, but he missed the final half of the season due to an injury. In his absence, Luke O’brien came on strong down the stretch, averaging 8.3 boards over the final nine games before finishing the season at 5.6 per game.
Da Silva is expected to make a jump from the 4.9 rebounds he averaged last season, and new center Eddie Lampkin, still on the comeback trail from a back injury, averaged 6.1 rebounds over the past two seasons at TCU.
The Buffs probably won’t have a player challenge for the Pac-12 rebounding title. But those four players each could average between five and eight per game.
“Some guys are going to have nights where they’re going to get 10, but obviously it takes good effort and everybody has to do their job boxing out,” O’brien said. “We’ve got great rebounders on our team. Me, J’vonne, and I think Tristan can be a really good rebounder. Eddie, obviously. We’ve just got to be able to box out and create space for other guys.
“There’s going to be nights where I might have 13, 14 rebounds and the next night I might have four but we outrebound them. It’s all about doing your job.”