Colorado's underclassmen show up sharp to their first exhibition

BOULDER — Wednesday night went well.

Colorado debuted its 2021-22 basketball roster with a 78-48 win over the Colorado School of Mines in an exhibition at the CU Events Center. While Mines is a Division II school, they’re also one of the best Division II schools in the country, and they gave Colorado a run the last time the teams played, back in 2019.

Evan Battey was a redshirt freshman.

“We talked about it,” Battey said after the game. “Me, Benan (Ersek), Eli (Parquet) and all the guys on the team that were around when that last game happened.”

Last time, Mines was tied with CU at halftime, before Colorado managed a 9-point win. This time, Colorado took an early lead and never looked back.

“I think it shows maturity,” Battey said.

“Mature” isn’t a word that we expected to use when talking about the Buffs tonight. Ten of the 12 scholarship players are freshmen or sophomores. Early-season struggles were to be expected.

But Colorado resisted.

The Buffs turned the ball over seven times in the first 10 minutes of the game—a textbook sign of an inexperienced team—but they only turned it over three times the rest of the way. Head coach Tad Boyle was impressed.

“Another positive from tonight,” Boyle said. “Ten is a great number. They really adjusted and you can still play fast—which we want to do—and still be under control. We just got a little careless in the first half with the ball but they adjusted and did a great job. We’ll live with 10 turnovers every night we play.”

Colorado’s 10 turnovers are even more impressive when you remember that Colorado’s three point guards are all, at least technically, freshman. K.J. Simpson and Julian Hammond III are all true freshmen, and Keeshawn Barthelemy is a redshirt freshman in his third season.

Boyle has called this group a three-headed monster but Barthelemy is the starter, although Simpson is breathing down his neck. The pair combined for 21 points with eight rebounds, five assists and two turnovers.”

“I’d like to see a faster backcourt than those two guys,” Boyle said.

The praise, especially for Simpson, didn’t stop there.

“In the first half, they start posting up their point guard against our guys and he got a couple of buckets in the first half,” Boyle said. “We talked about it at halftime. The first time they ran it, K.J. did a great job, got in front of them and they didn’t score on that play again.”

Simpson was the game’s leading scorer with 12 points.

“K.J. is gonna be a dynamic player,” Boyle said. “You got the breakaway dunk; you’re going to see plays like that from K.J. Simpson.”

Simpson said the game felt like he expected it to feel… including the first-game jitters.

“I’ve never played with that many fans in the arena before,” Simpson said. “It was an exhibition game but, I mean, it felt like a real game.”

Freshman seven-footer Lawson Lovering, like Battey, put up 10 points on Wednesday. But there were flaws; he missed his first few shots and he also missed three free throws. He also grabbed nine boards, drew five fouls and strung together a few moves in the post with some fancy footwork and earned himself an open layup.

“He’s gonna be a special, special player at Colorado,” Boyle said. “He’s got such great length, he’s got great feet. We switched ball screens with him tonight.”

He still needs to fill out and continue to develop his game but there’s plenty to like. According to his coach, Lovering is developing quickly.

“Lovering is like a sponge; he just keeps learning, he’s coachable,” Boyle said. “Evan has done a great job mentoring him and helping him understand. He’s gonna be a good player and I think it’s gonna happen this year.”

All told, it was about as good of a debut as you could have hoped for for Colorado. But Sunday’s exhibition at Nebraska will provide a tougher task, and nothing really matters until Montana State comes to town Nov. 9.

As of Wednesday, though, things are going well in Boulder.