As we’ve come to know in college basketball, momentum is a fickle thing to count on. When Colorado’s Spencer Dinwiddie tore his ACL last January, amid the Buffaloes’ explosive escalation towards college basketball’s elite, Tad Boyle’s program watched its balloon pop, so to speak.
Now more than one year removed from the injury, Colorado has sputtered to a 12-12, 5-7 record. The Buffaloes were picked by the media to finish third in the Pac-12 and, along with Utah, pose a serious threat to Arizona for the conference crown. After all, the team had already had a chance to work out its kinks with Dinwiddie for the final half of last season, and theoretically, a year older should mean a year better. Not so much for the Buffs.
Not only is Colorado thoroughly out of the picture for the NCAA Tournament, it remains to be seen whether or not they’ll be able to scrape together enough wins for an NIT bid.
Six games remain on the schedule, four of which come on the road against the conference’s Oregon and Washington schools. Sandwiched between those road trips is the final home stand of the year, as CU hosts Arizona State and Arizona. Beating the Wildcats in Boulder is not something that we’re counting on, and so, the Buffs will need to find at least three wins amongst their other contests.
The question is, can this program and its talented–though completely disorganized–roster pull things together enough to get something right in a year where nearly everything has gone wrong? Obviously, that remains to be seen, but whether an NIT bid becomes a reality or not, Colorado is still one of the nation’s most disappointing teams in 2014-2015.
