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When was the last time anyone other the parents of players paid attention to the CU Buffs men’s basketball team? Well, there’s finally a reason to start.
Last night’s victory over Kansas State marks the second straight win over a ranked opponent — which has never happened before in school history — and the first such triumph on the road since Chauncey Billups wore black and gold.
Not that CU’s being led by a star of Chauncey’s magnitude. Last night’s scoring leader was Levi Knutson, a senior from the basketball hotbed of Littleton, ably assisted by another senior, Marcus Relphorde, as well as sophomore Alec Burks.
So who’s responsible for CU’s sudden surge toward respectability? Coach Tad Boyle.
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A lot of us were disappointed when Jeff Bzdelik left CU to take the coaching gig at Wake Forest. He seemed like just the guy to build up a program that had suffered from benign neglect for years. But Boyle, who jumped to CU from the University of Northern Colorado, has proven to be the kind of leader capable of getting the most out of the resources at hand. The team is playing like one, with everyone contributing. As evidence, consider that Knutson came off the bench to drop twenty on the K-State Wildcats.
CU’s football team continues to get the buffalo’s share of notice from the media, whether it be for good reasons (the hiring of impressive coach Jon Embree) or bad (the arrest of linebacker Michael Sipili in a sex assault investigation). But if the Buffs basketballers keep this up, we’ll have another squad to follow — and given that Denver could well be losing Billups soon, that’s great news for all concerned.
More from our Sports archive: “Carmelo Anthony & Chauncey Billups trade to NJ Nets hitting roadblock over Al Harrington?“
