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What number will Trevor Baskin wear at Colorado?

Earlier this week, the Colorado Buffaloes men’s basketball team announced new numbers for the upcoming season. Usually this isn’t a big deal, but the team will have three big transfers plus three incoming freshmen and this is our first chance to see them in uniform.

Trevor Baskin is the headliner of the transfer class and he will wear #6 this season. He was #22 at Colorado Mesa, where he was maybe the best player in Division II basketball, but that number is retired at CU in honor of the late Burdette “Birdie” Haldorson. He’s going to be Colorado’s main playmaker as a point forward, so maybe this blog will call him LeBaskin.

The other transfers, Elijah Malone (#50) and Andrei Jakimovski (#23), will keep the numbers they wore at Grace College and Washington State, respectively. Both shoulder be expected to start. Malone is an athletic, do-it-all center who will thrive in the five-out offense. Jakimovski is a versatile forward who will hit threes, talk **** and play smart team defense.

As for the freshmen, Andrew Crawford will debut in #42, Sebastian Rancik will wear #7 and Felix Kossaras will don #15. It’s unclear how these freshmen figure into Tad Boyle’s immediate plans, but don’t be surprised if Kossaras gets the preseason hype even if he wasn’t that highly rated out of high school.

Finally, we have Bangot Dak switching from #12 to #8. The lanky forward from Nebraska was a surprise addition to last season’s rotation and more will be expected from him this season. He’s still developing as a ball handler and shooter, but he has a tremendous feel for the ball and showed all kinds of promise on the defensive end.

Everyone else on the roster will keep the same numbers they had last season.

by Sam Metivier
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Photo by Jevone Moore/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

We don’t need to relitigate it too much, but the Buffs’ pass rush was bad last year. They had the 7th-best sack total in the Pac-12, and individually only had two guys – Lavonte Bentley and Jordan Domineck – with at least five. Bentley will come back for one last season in Boulder, but besides that, it didn’t look like there was a whole lot of passing rushing production returning for 2024.

That’s why BJ Green was such a big get for the Buffs. Considered one of the Top 25 available portal players, Green brings proven pass rushing production to a team that so desperately needs it.

Green spent the first three seasons of his college career at Arizona State, where he lead the team in sacks as a freshman preferred walk-on. He was the highest-rated pass rusher on the defense that season, and according to ASU’s website, Green had the highest-rated efficiency numbers of any pass rusher in the Pac-12 too. The program offered him a scholarship a few months after the season ended.

His box score production dropped as a sophomore (despite still having PFF’s best pressure rate), but Green rebounded to put up career-best numbers last season as a junior. In 12 games for the Sun Devils last year, he had six sacks and 21 solo tackles, 11 of which were for a loss. He ended his ASU career on a high note when he was named to the second-team All Pac-12.

Not long after announcing his plans to transfer to Washington, Green flipped to Colorado, in part because Huskies coach Kalen DeBoer took the Alabama job. But Green also has a history with Deion Sanders, going back to his days playing youth football in Atlanta. In a video interview he did with the Pac-12 network, Green talks about how it was Sanders that convinced him to move from running back to defensive line.

On the field, Green figures to step in and immediately be one of the more impactful players on the Buffs’ defense. At 6’1 and 170 lbs, he’ll be one of the smaller players on CU’s defensive front, but has experience playing both inside and on the edge to go along with his elite pressure stats. Green is the major piece on a defensive line that’ll feature a bunch of new faces this year, including Pittsburgh transfer Samuel Okunlola (who also had six sacks last season) and Houston transfer Chidozie Nwankwo.

by camellis
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CBS Sports has CU in the middle of the Big 12 in its: "Net rankings and player totals", but using the 247 Sports transfer ratings, it's clear how much better CU's Transfer Class is (even compared to the CU Transfer Class of 2023) ...

Stuart
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So ... Who would make your list of CU's top three transfers on offense, and top three transfers on defense? ... Is the Shilo Sanders bankruptcy important news, or much ado about nothing? ... Will private equity be the "kiss of death" for college football, or its salvation? ... Let's find out ...

Stuart
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Photo by Gregory Fisher/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

The Ohio transfer road to power football has been a long time coming

The Colorado Buffaloes’ 2024 defensive line corps is packed full of fresh new faces. Coach Prime and his staff honed in on bolstering the defensive trenches via the transfer portal, adding some impressive talent to the group. One particular addition to the D-line sticks out as perhaps the most intriguing: former Ohio defensive tackle Rayyan Buell.

At first glance, Buell is your proto-typical pass rusher. He uses his 6-foot-3, 277-Ibs. build to bulldoze opposing offensive linemen to clog holes and wreak havoc in the offensive backfield. Buell tallied 4.5 sacks and 12.5 tackles for losses in only nine games played with the Ohio Bobcats last season, earning him third-team all-MAC honors in 2023.

The stats and tape from Buell’s time in Athens don’t tell the full story of his eventual landing with the Buffaloes. Buell’s road to playing college football in a power conference has been a long one, and a long time coming.

Coming out of Hornell High School in New York in 2019, Buell originally committed to play with the Rutgers Scarlett Knights in the Big 10. Rutgers never let Buell to see the field in his time with the team, so he made the tough choice to transfer to Northwestern Mississippi Community College.

Moving from a Power Five roster to playing community college ball is a big jump, but Buell excelled given the circumstances. After starting all 12 games of the 2021 season for the Rangers, Buell racked up 32 tackles, a sack and a forced fumble. Buell’s impressive showing at NMCC earned him an opportunity to move back up to the FBS level with the Ohio Bobcats, which he once again made the most of.

In his last year of eligibility, Buell will finally get to play on the biggest stage. The nation’s eyes will be on Boulder and the Buffaloes in 2024, and Buell will be right in the mix of the madness. It’s a perfect full-circle moment for a player who deserves it more than anyone.

With all the newcomers competing for playing time in Colorado’s defensive line, Buell has established himself as one to watch. Most of the Buffs’ D-line transfers are castoffs from other Power Five programs that couldn’t see the field during a game. Buell was once in their shoes, but has taken an unconventional route to work his way back to the top.

Buell now has the reputation of an up-and-coming former Group of Five player who wants to prove he can succeed at the highest level, and that might be exactly what the Buffs need.

Colorado’s most successful transfers so far have been players who moved up to play power football in Boulder, like Xavier Weaver, Jimmy Horn Jr, Cam’Ron Salmon-Craig, and of course the Sanders brothers and Travis Hunter. Coach Prime and his staff have a potential diamond in the rough in Buell, but it’ll be up to them to shape him.

by RylandScholes
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