I’m ready for the college football season to be over. Between CU’s season, the Sherrone Moore situation (I’m also a Michigan grad), Lane Kiffin, Diago Pavia’s “F INDIANA” tantrum, private equity in college football, NIL and mercenary players, the complete lack of importance of non-playoff bowl games, ridiculous conference realignment and about 32,186 other things, it’s time to move on to other sports.
Let’s catch up on CU hoops.
Will the Men’s Basketball Team Go Dancing?
Colorado men’s basketball team currently sits at 9-1, and fans are slowly starting to notice that Tad Boyle’s team might be better than expected. At the CU game on Saturday against UTSA, several folks asked me if this is an NCAA tournament team.
Let’s take a look.
To be considered for an at-large berth in the NCAA tournament, a power conference team typically needs to be ranked within the top 35 or so of NET rankings and KenPom.
Colorado is currently 47th in NET ranking (with the 8th highest NET ranking in the Big 12) and 61st in KenPom (with the 11th highest KenPom rating in the Big 12). Therefore, if the NCAA tournament started tomorrow, Colorado would be on the outside looking in. However, for a team picked to finish 15th in the preseason Big 12 poll, the Buffs are playing better than experts predicted.
While CU doesn’t currently have a Quad 1 win, the Buffs did secure a significant Quad 2 win against Washington in the Acrisure Holiday Classic. And there will be many chances to pick up Quad 1 wins in the Big 12 this season, where Arizona, BYU, Houston, Kansas, and Texas Tech are all top 25 teams nationally.
The biggest reason that CU is better than expected has to do with the point guard duo of Barrington Hargress and Isaiah Johnson. Both players are very efficient and don’t turn the ball over. CU has the 14th lowest turnover percentage in college basketball, which is a massive improvement over last season, where CU had the 352nd (!) lowest turnover percentage. Additionally, CU as a team is shooting over 40% from 3, giving the Buffs the 6th highest 3-point shooting percentage in college basketball.
If you combine deadeye outside shooting with limited turnovers, you have a receipe for success.
True freshman PG Isaiah Johnson is the team’s leading scorer on the season, averaging 14.7 points per game and shooting over 48% from 3 (!). Barrington Hargress is averaging 12.5 points and nearly 5 assists per game while shooting 60% from 3 (!). While these percentages will undoubtedly decrease over the season, CU has some legitimate outside shooting from the point guard position.
In the front court, CU is led by Sebastien Rancik (13.2 points and 6 rebounds per game), Bangot Dak (11.5 points and 7 rebounds per game), and Alon Michaeli (11 points and 4 rebounds per game while only playing 18 minutes per game). Rancik and Dak are still too inconsistent for my taste, but both are long athletes that should help keep CU competitive in the Big 12.
Before the season started, I wrote that Isaiah Johnson and Alon Michaeli were going to be 2 of the better players on the team this season. I think I under-estimated the impact that both would have. In fact, at this point they’re 2 of CU’s best 3 or 4 players, and I think it’s imperative that Michaeli specifically plays more minutes. Elijah Malone has struggled thus far this season, and Michaeli should take some of his minutes. Michaeli runs the floor extremely well and gives CU more athleticism, which will be needed in conference season.
If Colorado can finish in the top 10 of the Big 12 this season, that would be a big improvement over expectation and should land CU in the NIT Tournament.
What To Read/Watch
–COSM looks like the next big thing in watching sports.
–If you quit social media, will you read more books? Maybe not….. ($)
https://www.newyorker.com/news/fault-lines/if-you-quit-social-media-will-you-read-more-books
–Can a fast-growing Filipino chain take over America? ($)
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/01/jollibee-fried-chicken-american-fast-food/684949/?src=longreads
–The Big 12’s new private credit — not private equity — deal could provide up to $30m of debt financing to each Big 12 school.
–This is a great twitter thread discussing where former CU football players landed and how they performed.
–Can we now reverse blindness?
CU Event Center Issues
Who turned off the lights? And why are the banners hung in the concourse?
The bad news? The atmosphere at the CU Event Center largely sucks.
The good news? It can be improved with some simple fixes.
First, the arena is way too dark. We need to light up the CU Event Center like the Griswold Family lights up their house for the holidays.
Second, hang the team’s championship banners inside the bowl and not in the stadium concourse. Other arenas hang their banners inside the bowl because it gives the arena gravitas and a sense of history. CU’s banners, hung above the concourse for some hare-brained reason, provide a sense of history only for those people that want an overpriced hot dog or need to take a quick trip to the bathroom.
Third, rip out the first 4 or 5 rows of seating on the side of the court behind the team benches and put in wooden bleachers. Then, move part of the CU student section into those premium wooden bleacher seats. Having CU students right on top of the action would incentivize more students to attend games (which is a big problem right now), increase the atmompshere at the arena by an order of magnitude, and make the arena look rabid on television. This is what big time college basketball programs do, and if CU wants to create an imposing home court advantage, then it needs to do this.
If you want to read about what to expect from CU’s offense next year, and how the marriage of Brennan Marion’s Go-Go offense and a non-running QB in Juju Lewis might look, check out this post:
I lol’d at the picture of the concourse banners. What are we doing here? It’s like no one is in charge of the CU Event Center — do people in charge have a clue? Sometimes I think the folks running CU athletics are totally and completely out to lunch.
Edit: I love the “what to read/watch” section. Fascinating stuff re: potentially curing blindness. Thanks for including this section.
Thanks. It’s nice to have a spot where I can post some of the random/interesting stuff that I’ve read over the prior week.
What are your thoughts on the B12 private equity deal both from a general perspective and CU perspective. From a CU perspective many of our peers probably need this more than CU, as they are more financially leveraged/deep in the red. I could envision CU actually competing better in the B12 without the deal.
I do like the idea of a strategic partnership with a well reputed qualified company maximizing conference deals, but these deals are usually not free, as the partner typically gets a generous cut when the deal closes. I do not think this deal will come anywhere to closing the disparity between the SEC and B1G, plus they may land their own deals.
The $30M preferred capital credit line seems more like a loan for each school. $30M is rather small given the financial challenges facing some of our peers. I suppose it could be used to refinance certain debt on much more favorable terms. At some juncture all the Schools/ADs are going to have to look at costs and accept the fact that the schools themselves are going to have to support the AD, if they want to remain competitive. That is the only way to really keep up.
Regarding the possibiility of CU doing a traditional private equity deal, I have real concerns. As someone that has worked with and against PE firms for 25 years, I do know that they always get their pound of flesh. Now, the devil will be in the details. If the valuation for CU’s athletic assets is high enough and there’s only limited management rights that are transfererd, then it’s possible thaat it could work.
Regarding this debt deal, it’s not what we think of when we think of private equity deals. Yes, it’s private capital but it’s debt. Because there’s no management rights are being transferred and presumably a low interest rate is being charged, I don’t have any issues with it — particularly if Redbird helps advise the ADs as part of the added value.
Re: CU AD’s debt — the university could pump $30m into the AD tomorrow without any obligation for the AD to repay. In fact, this has been happening regularly over last 5+ years and 2 years ago the university pumped nearly $20m to the AD. So when folks say CU’s AD is in debt, it’s being a little disingenuous. The university benefits greatly from the school’s athletics and can — and probably should — send money directly to the AD given these massive benefits. For this reason, when folks say the CU AD is in a death sprial or that it’s a house of cards, promptly ignore that person.
LOL, I completely missed the banners in that first picture. Might as well be in the parking lot.
In a rebuilding year, I would gladly take an NIT bid. However I think the CSU game result is what we will see most weeks in Big 12 play – games we should win but won’t. But if we can keep the kids, next year could be…(don’t want to jinx them).
I feel for the student fans today. Who wants to see these no name teams that are rolling into Boulder? I get that is the way college basketball works, but even us CU sports starved fans in New England can’t get excited for these games.
And +1 on including the “what to read/watch” section. Interesting stuff. Thanks again for the great content. Sko Buffs!
Thanks Dave. Keeping the “kids” in the program going forward is going to be Tad Boyle’s biggest challenge over the next 2-3 years.