former home of CU\u2019s sixth-year senior center<\/a>, Elijah Malone.<\/p>\nIt\u2019s getting closer to go-time for Inman and CU\u2019s other six freshmen, as the Buffs tip off the 16th season under Boyle on Nov. 3 at home against Montana State. The rookies all are going through the typical freshman hurdles, from the pace of the Division I game to balancing athletics with classes, as well as the expectations inherent with playing at the power conference level.<\/p>\n
Playing for Boyle\u2019s Buffs, though, also means focusing on defense. And the influence of CU\u2019s defensive-minded head coach might already be soaking into Inman, whose early concerns with adjusting to the collegiate level had little to do with a long-range touch that\u2019s sorely needed by the Buffs.<\/p>\n
\u201cProbably the biggest transition for me has been off-ball defense, being in the correct spot on defense, jumping to the ball \u2014 all that good stuff,\u201d Inman said. \u201cJust playing very sound defensively. You\u2019ve got to play defense to win. In college, you\u2019ve got to be sound on defense. That\u2019s how you win games. For me, I feel like I\u2019m getting better on defense. I\u2019m long, so getting deflections will help a lot, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Inman keeps getting up to speed defensively, his ability from the 3-point line could give the Buffs an immediate spark.<\/p>\n
CU struggled from the arc last year, ranking 15th in the Big 12 with a .321 mark. It was the second-lowest 3-point percentage by the Buffs in 15 seasons under Boyle.<\/p>\n
The graduation of Julian Hammond III (.375) and the decision by RJ Smith (.386) to transfer to DePaul has left a giant void for CU along the perimeter. As with any rookie under Boyle, defense will ultimately determine the level of Inman\u2019s minutes. But it\u2019s Inman\u2019s shooting touch that likely will give him his initial chance to stick in the rotation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIan\u2019s a knock-down shooter,\u201d Boyle said. \u201cHe\u2019s a guy we knew could shoot the ball when we recruited him out of Texas. Wonderful young man. Really coachable. Gives you everything he\u2019s got every day. I think he\u2019s a guy that\u2019s really learning on the defensive end.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 6-foot-6 wing will endure his growing pains like any rookie, but this week Boyle recounted an observation from last week\u2019s intrasquad scrimmage that showed Inman might already have the mental toughness required to compete in the rugged Big 12.<\/p>\n
\u201cI look at (last) weekend and he missed a tough three in the corner,\u201d Boyle said. \u201cHe came down the next possession, was wide open and he didn\u2019t even hesitate. He was a step or two behind the three and he let it fly and it went in. So he\u2019s a guy who we want to get shots for, and his teammates have to understand what he can do for us. I think they\u2019re learning that.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike all freshmen, he\u2019s got to become more consistent. And he\u2019s got to understand the way he\u2019s going to find his way on the floor is to make sure we can all trust him defensively. But his offensive game, his ability to shoot the ball, is at the Big 12 level, I think.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ian Inman has the potential to be an instant-offense type threat off the bench for the Colorado men\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":229667,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[402,18881,18882,18883,4044,2662,25236,3832,9045,4142,2558,983,398,400,401,3,99],"class_list":["post-229666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-basketball","tag-basketball","tag-boulder","tag-boulder-county","tag-buffzone","tag-college-basketball","tag-college-sports","tag-college-menu2019s-basketball","tag-colorado","tag-colorado-news","tag-front-range","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-basketball","tag-ncaabasketball","tag-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229666\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}