McKinley Wright senses a target on the Buffs' backs

When the Colorado Buffaloes basketball team split into teams for a scrimmage during its first practice of the season Friday morning, the vibe was different than in years past.

Star point guard McKinley Wright wore white and sophomore starting post Evan Battey put on black. Battey’s side won.

Before lining up to run wind sprints as punishment for losing, Wright made sure Battey  knew he wasn’t going to lose again.

“Get yo’ ass back on the line,” Battey responded.

There’s a tension in the CU Events Center that comes with high expectations. The energy is higher. There’s no time to take plays off.  The team knows what is on the line this season.

“It feels a lot different,” Wright said after practice. “More energy today. Everybody competing. Y’all seen Ev (Evan Battey) down here yelling at us, cussing us out. It’s different.”

The dispute between Wright and Battey is nothing to be concerned about. It’s just a product of the new environment in Boulder. The pair believes this level of competition in practice will only make them better.

“Me and McKinley can be bumping heads in practice, but then after practice we’re right back to being best friends and him being my guy,” Battey said. “Our team is really tight and we’re going to keep going that way. It’s a family.”

Staying close is how Colorado is fending off the talk from the national media. ESPN currently has Colorado ranked 24th in the country and 4th in the Pac-12. SB Nation has  Colorado picked 2nd in the Pac-12 with a note that it was “very, very close” to taking the No. 1 spot. Athlon Sports and Sports Illustrated have the Buffs as favorites to win the conference.

“There’s a target on our back,” Wright said. “Normally we’re out there chasing teams but a lot of teams see that our whole roster’s back and it’s a lot of hype around us.”

Or as Battey put it:

“We went from being the hunter to being the hunted.”

It’s a different mindset than Colorado is used to. For most of the nine years Tad Boyle has led the program the Buffs have been a middle-of-the-pack Pac-12 team. In seven of his nine seasons they’ve finished within two games of .500 in conference play.

But the narrative began to change last January. After a two-point home loss to Oregon State, Wright says the Buffs’ mentality shifted. They realized how many talented players were on the roster and decided to trust each other more.

“When I say trust, it’s more ball movement instead of just coming down off one pass or going one-on-one,” Wright said.

The new free-flowing offense catapulted Colorado to a 10-3 run through the end of Pac-12 play. Now, the entire squad is back and it’s sparking big-time hype from the media.

“I’d be lying if I said we didn’t look at it and we didn’t see that kind of stuff,” Wright said. “We’ve seen it. It makes us happy. It makes us work harder to bring this program back to where it’s supposed to be.”

The night before the first practice of the season, Battey stopped using Twitter. He deleted the Twitter app on his phone and logged out of the website on his computer. He decided he didn’t care what anybody outside his locker room thought.

“You can look up everything that’s said about you on Twitter,” Battey said. “Having that power, I know I’m going to be tempted by it throughout the sesaon. It’s all noise. Whether it’s good things or bad things, you make the choice to buy into that.”

He’s staying on Instagram, since he won’t see nearly as many takes about himself or his teams. He isn’t following college basketball insiders on Instagram like he does on Twitter.

“It’s not for me to see right now,” Battey said. “I’d rather stay here and stay in my circle and keep being locked in.”

Battey’s circle is solely focused on replicating the success it found late last season. Colorado isn’t satisfied with preseason honors. The Buffs want to take advantage of the opportunity afforded to them by their combination of talent and expereince. Hopes are as high as they’ve been in years.

“We know it’s not going to be easy,” Wright said. “A lot of people think you can just wake up and win a championship but that’s not the way it goes. We’ve gotta stay in the gym. We’ve gotta keep getting better very day. Keep fighting for one another and hopefully we get that Pac-12 Championship and advance in the tournament.”

The first step in the campaign to the top of the Pac-12 is Nov. 9 when the Buffs head to Shanghai, China to take on Arizona State in the season-opener, but that’s still over a month away.

Until then, Colorado will keep battling in practice with an intensity it didn’t have last season.

“Competiting always doesn’t wear us down, it just riles us up,” Battey said.