The final pieces of the holdover portion for next season’s Colorado men’s basketball roster is mostly set, depending on a pair of significant decisions.
Cody Williams has yet to make his intention to enter the NBA draft official, but it would be a major upset if he forgoes a likely top-10 selection to remain in Boulder. The situation is maybe less certain for KJ Simpson, but he began the season off mock draft boards and played his way on to most of them with his standout season.
After that, though, the picture has cleared. J’Vonne Hadley, Eddie Lampkin Jr. and Joe Hurlburt are off to the transfer portal (Lampkin committed to Syracuse on Tuesday night). The rest of CU’s underclassmen from this season — Julian Hammond III, Javon Ruffin, RJ Smith, Bangot Dak, Assane Diop and Courtney Anderson — are expected to return, allowing head coach Tad Boyle and his staff to set their sights on finding reinforcements on the spring recruiting circuit.
“I feel like they’ve got two feet in. I do feel good about that,” Boyle said. “I feel like we’ve got a great, young core of players to build on and build around. We certainly need to add to that this spring in our spring recruiting and we’re actively doing that right now. The bottom line is there’s a lot of upheaval, there’s a lot of turnover in college basketball.
“This is not something we didn’t anticipate. It’s not something we didn’t plan for. You just don’t know what’s going to happen until the season’s over and you sit down with young men and find out what’s important to them, and what do they want to do as they move forward. We’ll continue to work through that process day-by-day.”
With the loss of seniors Tristan da Silva and Luke O’Brien, combined with the signing of three 2024 recruits in November (Felix Kossaras, Sebastian Rancik, and ThunderRidge star Andrew Crawford), the Buffs currently have two open scholarships to work with this spring. And one interesting potential option surfaced on Tuesday.
Last fall, CU was a finalist for Trent Perry, a 6-foot-4, four-star guard out of the Los Angeles area. Perry visited Boulder in September before committing to USC. In the wake of now-former Trojans coach Andy Enfield leaving for SMU, Perry re-opened his recruiting. CU has had recent good fortune in similar situations, as both Simpson (Arizona) former point guard McKinley Wright IV (Dayton) were signed elsewhere before coaching changes led them to re-open their recruiting options.
As the Buffs prepare for their return to the rugged Big 12 Conference, Boyle said reinforcing the size on his roster will be a priority. Diop and Dak are the only post players among the holdovers, but Diop is just 6-foor-8 and the multi-skilled Dak has just 180 pounds on his 6-foot-11 frame.
“Obviously we lose a lot of experience, and we were a senior-laden team,” Boyle said. “Certainly we need that (center) position. But the bottom line is we need good players that can pass, dribble and shoot. That have toughness, have character, are trustworthy. And we need some size. We need some size on the perimeter. And we need some size inside. But the bottom line is, we’re going to try to recruit the best players we can get, and then we will tailor our style of play and what we do schematically, both offensively and defensively, based upon the players we get.
“We’re not going to just recruit a guy just because of a certain body type or position. But we do need some size. And we really need some experience. So size and experience and skill level, in addition to character and toughness, are the things we’re looking for.”
