PAC-12 Basketball: Preseason power rankings for 2020-21 season

Tad Boyle’s Colorado squad looked like legitimate contenders last season, until a mid-February collapse. Now they’ll have to try to rebound this season without Tyler Bey, who will take his talents to the NBA.

Bey will be replaced by Tulsa transfer Jeriah Horne, who averaged 11 and 5 last year, although most of the scoring slack will be picked up by point guard McKinley Wright IV, who averaged 14.4 per game last year.

Wright, alongside Evan Battey and D’Shawn Schwartz, is a perfectly fine top three, although it doesn’t seem destined to lead the Buffs inside the top half of the conference.

For them to reach that ceiling, a pair of incoming freshmen – Dominique Clifford and Jabari Walker – will need to really pop.

Clifford was No. 110 overall at 247Sports, grew to 6’5 and now looks the part of a big, do-it-all style point guard who can defend multiple positions at the next level. Walker was a late-riser who can play the three through the five, and projects to be a very solid rotation player in year one.

If those two guys come out of the gates firing, this team has a chance to be borderline top 5 in the conference. If not, the reliability of Wright/Battey/Schwartz should at least keep Boyle and his team out of the PAC-12 cellar.