Despite his team’s ongoing injury issues, Colorado men’s basketball head coach Tad Boyle has led the Buffs to their 10th 20-win season in his 14 years at the helm.
The Buffs reached the checkpoint on Sunday night with an 81-71 victory over the Stanford Cardinal. The win marked CU’s fourth straight and the second without star freshman Cody Williams (ankle) and bench spark Julian Hammond III (knee).
Missing pieces have been the main theme of Colorado’s 2023-24 campaign. Entering this final week of the regular season, the Buffs have had a healthy starting lineup in only 16 of their 29 games. Following Colorado’s win over Stanford on Sunday, Boyle praised his Buffs for how they’ve dealt with so many missing pieces.
“Our guys believe in each other,” Boyle said. “They’ve overcome the injuries. It’s next man up. The other night, Ruff (Javon Ruffin) comes in and hits a couple of 3s; Assane Diop had seven rebounds in 13 minutes. Tonight, Bangot Dak, his number is called, he responds unbelievably well. The stats don’t always tell everything but his activity, his confidence (do). To me, that’s what makes me most proud of this team is all of the injuries that we have overcome. And it hasn’t gotten this (team) down. We haven’t made excuses. We just keep keep chugging along, and we’ve won 20 games. That says a lot for all the adversity that we’ve had to fight as a group — players and coaches — with the injuries.”
The bench has stepped it up recently, with Ruffin, Diop and Dak finding significant roles across the last few games. Combined with the upperclassmen scoring duo of KJ Simpson and Tristan da Silva, Colorado has cruised to four straight wins as a March Madness bubble team.
The Buffs will head to the state of Oregon for their final two games of the regular season, facing off against the Oregon Ducks first on Thursday. Tipoff is set for 7 p.m. MT on ESPN2.
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