"We're as good as anybody in the country": CU Buffs gear up for NCAA Tournament

All-Pac 12 performer Josh Scott nervously nibbles on a sandwich at head coach Tad Boyles house, waiting for the NCAA Tournament selection show to begin.

“If we get the last region, I’m gonna be sweating,” he jokes.

3:30 rolls around, the all-to-familiar jingle of March Madness plays on Boyle’s flat screen, silence comes over the once-lively room.

After a couple unnecessary analytical segments are followed by groans throughout the house, the show gets rolling. The third team announced — The Colorado Buffaloes. In their fourth tournament in five years the Buffs are an eight-seed taking on the UConn Huskies in Des Moines, Iowa.

“My stomach stopped hurting so that was nice,” Scott said of the selection. “I was a little nervous, really happy when then name came up, I thought we were going to have to sit here for two hours to wait and see our name up there. Really, really, really happy.”

Scott, potentially more familiar with the infamous snub of the 2011 Buffaloes, just thankful to hear the Buffs name called. The young, fiery personality of Tory Miller, he had his sights set higher.

“That was mad disrespectful,” he said of the Buffs receiving an eight. “But, like coach said, we have to go out there and prove that.”

They have a lot to prove. Those four tournament appearances in Tad Boyle’s tenure have only yielded one win, an upset over UNLV in the first trip to the dance. The last trip, an embarrassing, 77-48 loss to Pittsburgh in the same 8/9 matchup.

“Because we did go through that, nobody is going to take anything for granted, every possession,” Scott said. “Everybody still remembers that and I think that will be a driving factor.”

“The good thing about this team and playing in an 8/9 game is we have a lot of guys who were playing on that team,” added head coach Tad Boyle. “The freshman and sophomores are now juniors and seniors so they understand what can happen if you’re not ready to play. They can draw on that experience, it wasn’t too long ago we lived it and we don’t want to be in that situation again.”

Boyle talks a lot about legacy—the legacy of a player, the legacy of a class, the legacy for a team. For Scott, his legacy at Colorado is a great one but it’s also one that features zero wins in the NCAA Tournament, something you don’t have to remind him of.

“People remember wins, they don’t remember losses,” he told. “It’s important to get wins in the NCAA Tournament, that’s been my goal all year.”

“I’m ready to play,” he added. “I wish we could play today but we have to wait a couple days. That’s what’s kind of going on in my head.”

The Buffaloes are confident, they’ve felt all year that they could play with anyone in the country, the Oregon Ducks—who they beat—getting a one-seed, in a way, validates that.

“Once you get in the tournament it doesn’t matter who we play and it doesn’t matter what our seeding is,” athletic director Rick George told BSN Denver. “We’ve got to go beat everybody and I think we’re as good as anybody in the country, we just have to go play basketball.”

“I feel confident going up against anybody because of our firepower down in the low-post,” added junior big man Wesley Gordon.

Boyle’s staff spent Sunday night watching film of UConn, a team the University of Colorado has never faced in its entire history. They do have a player who has faced the Huskies, though.

“I played them my freshman year,” Providence transfer Josh Fortune remembered. “They’re a tough-minded team kind of a nitty gritty team and so are we, it’s going to be a fight.”

“No time for slip-ups, you know?” a focused George King said.

No time for slip-ups, indeed. The Buffaloes have a chance to earn a lot of national respect by beating a storied program like UConn, they also have a narrative to nip that this program can’t get it done come tournament time. They get that opportunity on Thursday and you can be assured they won’t take it for granted.