The Town Crier

[PointGuard]

Post-Season Activity:

None of our players get any Pac-12 awards.

Although a number of head coaching job openings have arisen, the schools that are interested in me aren’t of interest to me.

Five Pac-12 teams will be looking for new head coaches following firings at Arizona, USC, Washington, and Washington State plus a retirement at Oregon State.

Since I met 3 of the 4 goals assigned by the AD, my position at Colorado is secure. The team finished over .500, qualified for the NIT or better, and improved Colorado’s prestige (from 42 to 47). By finishing 7th out of 12 teams, we failed to finish in the top half in the conference standings.

Although my 3rd assistant coach Mike Jones did a good job recruiting in his first year at Colorado, he has a horrible temper and he and I really didn’t hit it off, so it was time for him to go.

After an extensive search and series of offers, I hired Marquise Archibald as our new 3rd assistant coach. He’s 65 and probably not too far from retirement, but is a very good recruiter who was the 2nd assistant coach at Florida International for 7 years and at Tennessee the past 3 years.

After what I felt had been a good season for our team, I petitioned the board for a budget increase and was very pleased when they gave us an $11,125 increase for this coming year. With 5 scholarships to fill this coming year, the additional funds are likely to be needed.

[PointGuard]

2026-2027 Season Begins

Recruit Class Rankings Out:

The rankings for last season’s recruit classes are out. Our recruiting class was ranked #21. Other rankings for some of our conference foes include: Arizona, #5; Oregon, #8; UCLA, #18; Washington, #22; Stanford #23; USC #58; Utah #132; and Oregon State #135.

Recruiting Plans

Marquise Archibald, my new 3rd assistant coach and recruiting coordinator, and I had a long discussion about this year’s recruiting. Marquise felt our recruiting last year was a success. But he correctly assessed that our past recruiting has been primarily regional. He feels that with our upward trajectory, improved record, and improved prestige, it’s time to expand our scope to go after some high flyers nationally. He wants to recruit a top 25 player this year.

We discussed our past strategy which was to do a shotgun approach regionally. Since costs will increase by going outside our region, Marquise suggested we become more focused in our efforts…cutting down on the number of recruits on our list, but becoming more laser focused on those on our list. While we’ve been slow to cut recruits from our list who were slow to show interest, he wants to drop those who can’t recognize what we have to offer and be ready to then zero in on new possibilities. He acknowledged that there are no guarantees, but feels that it’s worth taking a chance and I gave him the go-ahead. So we’ll see how it goes.

We have 5 seniors graduating this coming year. We also have 5 freshmen this season, but only have 2 juniors and 1 sophomore. So our classes are askew and I’d like to begin to even them out over the next couple of years. Therefore I’d like to recruit 1 or 2 JC players this season which will begin to correct that problem. Of the 5 players we'll recruit, we need 2 or 3 guards and a true center this season.

Transfers

We don’t have any open scholarships so won’t be participating, but there’s a sophomore from UCLA I’d sure like to have. He was a top 10 recruit, but UCLA just played him a few minutes each game so he must have got fed up with that. But the guy is a stud. We’d probably have a tough time getting him anyway, since the competition is likely to be intense as I expect several premier programs will go after him.

Norton Award nominees

We were ecstatic when 2 of our players received notification that they had been nominated for the prestigious Norton Award.
6’6” junior Kenton Dunn’s play in his first 2 seasons here has been extremely noteworthy. Following a strong freshman year and playing out of position at SG (he’s a natural SF), he led our team in scoring last season with 14.1 ppg. This season he is likely to play primarily at SF but also put some time in at SG and maybe even PF.

Our other nominee is 6’8” freshman Ike Minahan. We believed he would be a stud for us and his nomination shows that others think the same thing. He has so many strong skills that I believe he will provide exactly what we need offensively, defensively and on the boards playing both C and PF this season.

[PointGuard]

Summer and Fall Recruiting

My new 3rd assistant, Marquise Archibald, who is in charge of recruiting and I formed a good team. Marquise definitely has a lot of experience and a nice touch when working with prospective recruits and their parents. That made my home visits in September and October more effective since the groundwork had been well done by Marquise.

In early September we got a commitment from a JC point guard and then within the next 3 weeks we added 3 high school recruits, a SG, PF, and PG. All four recruits were ranked from #25 to #88 nationally. So Marquise was successful in helping us land a top 25 player which was one of his goals. We didn’t fill the 5th and last scholarship, but I’m not unhappy about that at all. We will hold it in our back pocket so we can offer it to a high ranked recruit later in the season. In the meantime we will continue to build interest in those recruits on our watch/call lists.

Here’s some basic information about the 4 recruits who have given us verbal commitments:

Devin Whitmore is a 6-0 PG from Stillwater, OK. Last season he averaged 18.6 ppg, 7.9 apg, 3.2 rpg, 3.5 spg, and 0.9 bpg. He’s a sweet shooter from outside with outstanding passing skills and is an adept ball handler. He’s also very strong defensively and is a real ball-hawk. He rarely misses practices. Devin is ranked #25 in the nation.

Lamar Kapono is a 6-8 PF from Houston, TX. He averaged 15.0 ppg, 2.0 apg, 18.5 rpg, 3.6 spg, and 4.0 bpg. He’s a beast on the boards and a great shot blocker and gets a lot of steals. Lamar is a very good defender and is an excellent scorer, particularly inside. He was in the top 10 at the Indy Elite Camp and then was MVP at the Houston Classic Camp. He’s the 32nd highest ranked recruit in the nation.

Malik Howard is a 6-4 SG from Phoenix, AZ who averaged 15.7 ppg, 3.9 apg, and 9.0 rpg. He’s an excellent shooter from outside. He also is a very strong rebounder and a good defender. He needs to work on his shot blocking and stealing, but is very athletic. He’s a hard worker and doesn’t have many problems with injuries. He’s ranked #42 in the nation.

Bret Cross is a 6-1 PG from Calhan, CO and will be transferring to just after playing JC ball. Last season he scored 13.7 ppg and had 3.5 apg, 3.8 rpg, 1.7 spg, and 0.6 bpg. He has strong passing and ball handling skills and is an excellent scorer from outside. He’s very good defensively and is very athletic and is a hard worker. He’s ranked #88 in the nation.

Howard and Whitmore don’t have very good GPA’s in high school, so we’ll be holding our breath when SAT scores are announced.

[PointGuard]

Pre-Conference Schedule Announced

We’re continuing to upgrade our pre-conference schedule this season. We’ve included several teams that are ranked in the pre-season polls:

BUTLER
KANSAS ST.
@ #12 Seton Hall
AIR FORCE
IOWA ST.
PURDUE
#15 PITTSBURGH
@ #18 Duke
Penn St. (in the first round of Hoops for Troops Tournament}

[If we’re able to beat Penn State, I don’t know who else we’ll come up against in the Hoops For Troops Tourney, but I’d really like to win that tournament. I think it will give our guys a real morale boost going into Pac-12 play.]

[PointGuard]

2026-2027 Roster for Colorado Buffaloes:

(*--Starter at beginning of season; #--Walk-on)

PG—Justin Wilson, 6-5, SO*
PG—Matt Conley, 6-2, SR
PG/SG—John Phelan, 6-3, FR
SG—Camah Griffin, 6-0, SR*
SG—Steve Jackson, 6-1, SR
SF/SG—Kenton Dunn, 6-6, JR*
SF—Rick Coffey, 6-7, JR
PF/SF—Charles Maors, 6-8, SR*
PF—Primoz Pohek, 6-7, SR
PF—Brian Ross, 6-7, FR
C—Ike Minahan, 6-8, FR*
C/PF—Derricus Ivener, 6-8, FR
C—Brian Walker, 6-10, FR#
C—Billy Horton, 6-10, SO#

Redshirt—Mel Dye, 6-7 FR (Mel will benefit from some maturing and development. But he’s got such a great personality and is such a cohesive factor for the team, that I’ll be glad to have him practicing with us this season and playing for us an additional 4 years. I expect him to be a team leader next season.)

We have great depth and experience at the 3 perimeter positions. On the interior, even with all the freshmen players, I think we’ll be OK, particularly as they become familiar with our sets/strategies and playing at the Division I level.

There are some tough calls for starters, since several of the positions have players with nearly equal talent. Wilson and Conley are pretty equal overall at PG, as are Griffin and Jackson at SG and Dunn and Coffey at SF. So we’re likely to do some experimentation in pre-conference play.

[Wayne23]

Do you play the two exhibition games during the week before the season starts? I do, and that helps me with lineup decisions. Of course the lineup still gets tweaked, especially during the pre-conference portion of the season.

[PointGuard]

Do you play the two exhibition games during the week before the season starts? I do, and that helps me with lineup decisions. Of course the lineup still gets tweaked, especially during the pre-conference portion of the season.

Sometimes I do, other times I don't. But yeah, it does give you some idea. Although often my players are so inconsistent that it is still hard to know.

[PointGuard]

Game #1: Butler Bulldogs (0-0) @ Colorado Buffaloes (0-0)

We had trouble getting the ball in the hoop early in the 1st half and fell behind 18-12 with 11 minutes left in the half. We then began hitting our shots (including knocking down 7 of our last 10 three pointers) and gradually pulled away to lead 44-34 at the end of the half. Our only negative was that we made 10 turnovers in the half. SG Camah Griffin led our scoring with 9 points.

In the 2nd half we continued to expand our lead and knocked off Butler 83-64. We hit 52% of our FG attempts, 83% of our FT attempts, and 50% of our 3’s. Defensively we held the Bulldogs shooting to 38%.

Leading our scoring was C Ike Minahan with 13 points. PF Charles Maors and SG Camah Griffin both scored 12 and PG Justin Wilson had 10 points. Freshman PG John Phelan came in for the final 7 minutes and scored 7 points.

We played very well the last 30 minutes of the game and we were able to play our entire bench, so it was a nice way to begin the season.

[PointGuard]

Game #2: Kansas State Wildcats (0-1) @ Colorado Buffaloes (1-0)

SF Kenton Dunn was hot early, hitting all 4 shots he took and scoring 10 points in the first 6 minutes to help us open a 19-13 lead. With our offense clicking, we surged to a 37-24 lead with 5:49 left to go in the half. SG Steve Jackson caught fire as we streaked to a 53-32 advantage with 2 minutes remaining. Kansas State hit two late 3’s to make the halftime score 53-38 in our favor. We hit 53% of our FG attempts and 70% of our 3P attempts. We also had just one turnover while forcing the Wildcats to turn the ball over 10 times. SF Kenton Dunn scored 18 points and SG Steve Jackson hit for 16 points.

We held onto a large lead throughout the 2nd half and finished with an 88-70 beatdown of Kansas State.

SG Steve Jackson led our scoring with 20 points with SF Kenton Dunn dropping in 18 points, SG Camah Griffin hitting for 12 (and adding 7 assists, 5 rebounds, 3 steals and a block), and PF Charles Maors adding 10 points.

Charles Maors bruised his hip and is likely to miss our next game.

[PointGuard]

Game #3: Colorado Buffaloes (2-0) @ Seton Hall Pirates (0-1)

The Pirates made it to the Elite 8 in the NCAA Tourney last season.

After trailing 5-2, we hit a FG and then Ike Minahan knocked down 2 straight 3’s to put us on top 10-5. We then hit two more 3’s plus two FG’s to spurt ahead 20-9 after 7 minutes of play. Seton Hall woke up and began hitting shots to close within 4 points a few times before the half ended with us on top 36-29. We hit 7 of 12 from beyond the arc with our center Ike Minahan sinking all four 3-pointers he attempted. Minahan finished the half with 17 points.

We held onto a solid lead until midway through the 2nd half when Seton Hall crept to within a single point at 53-52. Then with just over 5 minutes left in the game, the Pirates went ahead 60-59. They then drilled 2 consecutive 3’s to expand their lead to 66-61. We made a game effort down the stretch but the Pirates sunk their shots when needed to beat us 73-69. The team stats were as close as the game.

C Ike Minahan had a phenomenal game, scoring 25 points and pulling down 9 rebounds. SG Camah Griffin also came up big with 18 points. But Seton Hall’s SF Oti Jenkins hit 10 of 13 shots (including 8 of 9 from 3 point range) to score 28 points and sink our chances.