There was a moment early in the first public viewing of the new-look Colorado men’s basketball team that offered a glimpse that one particular preseason focus might be paying off.
Buffaloes head coach Tad Boyle has always preached rebounding, along with defense, as one of the core tenets of a program he’s leading for the 16th season. Offensive rebounding has never been a particular focus, but Boyle wants that to change this season.
On Saturday, the Buffs hosted their annual open Black and Gold intrasquad scrimmage at the CU Events Center, offering an early preview of a roster featuring 10 newcomers. In attempting to bounce back from last year’s last-place finish in the Big 12, the Buffs are set to be a bigger, deeper and more versatile team than the one that started 0-13 in the conference last season.
If Boyle has his way, it will be an improved offensive rebounding team as well.
“Our offensive rebounding isn’t good enough. We’re standing and watching,” Boyle said earlier this week. “It’s something that we’ve really as a coaching staff tried to change relative to years past, maybe be more aggressive on the offensive glass. Getting more possessions, get those second and third opportunities. We’re not doing that right now.”
The Buffs were a decent overall rebounding team last year, ranking ninth in Big 12 games in average rebounding margin at plus-0.9. But they ranked 14th out of 16 teams in offensive rebounding, averaging 9.4 in conference games.
Given the Buffs’ increased depth in the frontcourt, and with bigger guards along the wing capable of crashing the glass, the belief is that, between improving CU’s league-worst turnover total and an increased focus on offensive rebounding, the Buffs will gain more possessions for an offense that, when it didn’t turn the ball over, actually operated at a level higher than expected for a last-place team.
“The (size) and the depth and just the fact that one of the hardest things we have to do as coaches is teach our guys to box out defensively,” Boyle said. “And so if it’s a problem for us, it’s probably a problem for other coaches. I’ll bet if you talk to every coach in America, I’d bet they say boxing out and transition defense are two areas they have to get better at. And that’s no different for us.
“If boxing out is a problem, let’s take advantage of that problem. We may give up more points in transition doing that. But we should get more second and third opportunities. I’m not saying we have to be bad in transition defense, but the more guys you crash the glass with, the more chances you have for second and third possessions. And that’s what we want.”
One of the first buckets in Saturday’s scrimmage was recorded by freshman forward Alon Michaeli on a putback chance. The opening lineup for the Black squad included Michaeli, Isaiah Johnson, Josiah Sanders, Andrew Crawford and Tacko Ifaola. The White team countered with Barrington Hargress, Felix Kossaras, Jon Mani, Bangot Dak and Elijah Malone, although the combinations were mixed liberally throughout the four 10-minute quarters.
The open scrimmage represented the next step in CU’s competitive ramp-up ahead of the Nov. 3 season opener, with the Buffs set to host Malone’s old team, Grace College, for an exhibition game next Sunday (Sept. 19).
Boyle played the role as observer, letting assistants Mike Rohn and Nate Tomlinson handle the lead coaching duties, but CU’s leader wasn’t sitting idly on the sideline.
“I made about seven to 10 notes as the scrimmage went on. Just the things I saw,” Boyle said. “I’m going to dissect this thing tonight. Monday morning, we’ll have a lot of film to evaluate with our team.”