There are 351 NCAA Division 1 basketball programs getting ready for the 2013-14 season, and they all have one thing in mind: Getting chosen for March Madness and a shot at an NCAA championship.
For most of the University of Colorado's history, basketball was an afterthought to football. The glory days of Buff basketball were way back in the 1950's and 1960's. Colorado made it to the NCAA tournament 5 times in the 15 years from 1953-54 to 1968-69.
Then came NOTHING for 28 years!
The next time the Buffs made it to the NCAA tournament was when Chauncey Billups led them into a top 25 ranking and a trip to March Madness in 1997. Billups left early for the NBA and was the #3 pick in the 1997 draft.
It took another 6 years for the Buffs to get back in the hunt for postseason glory. Head coach Ricardo Patton led Colorado to only their 3rd 20-win season ever and a spot in the NCAA tournament in March 2003.
Then... Nothing... Until the Arrival of Tad Boyle in 2010.
Colorado basketball was once again in a state of flux until the arrival of head coach Tad Boyle. A Colorado native, Boyle led Greeley Central to the Colorado State Championship before going on to play his college basketball at Kansas under legendary coach Larry Brown.
After college, Boyle moved into the real world and had a successful career as a commodities broker who dabbled on the side as an assistant coach for several Colorado high schools. A traumatic car accident on South Boulder Road in 1994 became a turning point in his life, and he gave up his well paying job to follow his true love of basketball.
Starting at the University of Oregon, Boyle had stints with Tennessee and Jacksonville State before ending back in the state of Kansas at Wichita State. In six years as an assistant with the Shockers, Boyle helped build a down program into one of the better programs in the country. Wichita State was 9-19 his first year and 26-9 with a trip to the Sweet 16 and a national ranking six years later in 2006.
Boyle used the success at Wichita State as a springboard to his first head coaching gig, at the University of Northern Colorado in Loveland. His first year at UNC, Boyle's team won only 4 out of 28 games. Three years later, his final UNC team went 25-8.
That success propelled him to the University of Colorado, where he hit the floor running and hasn't slowed down yet. His first CU team went 24-14 and made to the semi-finals of the postseason NIT tournament after his Buffs were snubbed by the NCAA selection committee.
At the end of the 2011-12 season, Colorado's first in the Pac-12, Boyle and his Buffaloes kicked down the door to the NCAA tournament by winning four games in four days to earn the Pac-12's automatic tourney berth. In 2012-13, the Buffs hovered near the top 25 for much of the season and played one of the more difficult schedules in the country. They were rewarded with another trip to March Madness.
Colorado Students and Fans "Get-In" on the Madness
Colorado long played in the Big 8 (then Big 12) with the likes of Kansas and Oklahoma State. Lots of top 10 teams made their way to the Coors Events Center in Boulder. For the most part, however, unless a top team was playing in Boulder, seats to the games were pretty easy to come by. It was pretty much accepted by the local media that Colorado was just "not a basketball school."
The arrival of Boyle changed that thinking. The student section became much more vocal and numerous and came to be known as the C-Unit. It has become one the best and most vocal student sections in the country. Former Colorado Athletic Director Mike Bohn decided to reward the most avid members of the C-Unit by having the university fly them out to Los Angeles for the first Pac-12 tournament in 2012 and the vocal group cheered the Buffs to the tournament title.
Earlier this month, the University of Colorado announced that for the first time in school history that season tickets to the Buffs' 2013-14 season was SOLD OUT. On top of that, the Buffs get ready to enter the season with a top 25 ranking and are picked 3rd in the Pac-12 behind fellow top 25 teams Arizona and UCLA.
Entering this season, Colorado has had two consecutive seasons in which one of their players was chosen in the first round of the NBA draft (Alec Burks, Andre Roberson). Spencer Dinwiddie looks to continue the first round trend this year. With Boyle at the helm, the Buffs are finding the doors to some of the top high school talent in the country are open to playing their college basketball in Boulder.
Boyle is considered one of the best coaches in the country, and high school players with dreams of playing in the NBA know first round draft picks now come out of Boulder. Another thing these young men want is to play in front of a large and vocal crowd to help inspire them to victory. These are the things that make a program elite in the eyes of players and fans around the country.
And these are the things that now reside in Boulder under the leadership of Tad Boyle.
Note: Historical information about Tad Boyle from Wikipedia.
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