KANSAS CITY – Head coaches Tad Boyle and JR Payne, along with their players, represented the Colorado men’s and women’s basketball teams at the 2026 Big 12 basketball media days at the T-Mobile Center.
Payne and the women’s team spoke first on the main stage. Returners Zyanna Walker and Logyn Greer joined Payne, along with Kansas State transfer Aniya’ Foy. Returning guards Barrington Hargress and Josiah Sanders accompanied Boyle.
For the first time, the Big 12 made both programs represent themselves on the same day. It allowed the teams to see more of each other than usual.
“You get to just hear the laughs and hear the joy,” Sanders said about being at media day with the women’s team. “We have that with our team, but just to see that they have that too is really cool.”
Of course, there are more popular teams. Just one journalist on the CU basketball beat was in attendance.
Yet, with Boyle guaranteeing that his squad will “punch above their weight,” and Payne’s bunch looking to do the same, both squads offered optimism with two weeks before opening night.
Tad Boyle and MBB
Preseason Coaches’ Poll finish: T-No. 14 - 34 votes
One of Boyle’s favorite media jokes is: “We could have done this back in Boulder!” Outside his team’s beat reporters, few care for a team hoping to compete for the top of the conference’s bottom half.
Entering his 17th year at CU, though, Boyle reciprocates the lack of attention, at least when it comes to other programs. While his coaching friends like Baylor’s Scott Drew and Kansas’s Bill Self are also in KC, Boyle has tunnel vision on the Big 12. Why? The conference is so deep that every opponent presents a challenge, regardless of expectation. But Boyle can only control what happens with his guys; his new roster fires him up.
“I'm excited as I ever have been about a team, coaching this group of guys, because they're a competitive group,” Boyle told BuffStampede. “They've worked hard this offseason, and I always say they deserve my best shot as a coach and my energy every single day.”
Of course, the 63-year-old coach has seen his fair share of media days. But Tuesday was a first for the fifth-year Hargress and second-year Sanders.
The event gave the two more of a chance to bond; for example, Hargress found out his younger teammate snores. And they’ve seen familiar faces on other teams. Hargress played middle school basketball with Texas Tech’s Darrion Williams, and went to Heritage Christian Academy with Arizona State’s Dillan Shaw (current CU freshman Amir Jones also attended HCA). Sanders roomed with Kansas’s Big 12 Preseason Freshman of the Year, Tyran Stokes, at a Team USA camp in Colorado Springs.
Still, while it’s been fun to see everyone, the event has made the duo hungrier for a successful season. The Buffs went 7-11 in conference play and entered the conference tournament as the No. 11 seed before losing to No. 14-seeded Oklahoma State in the second round.
“I remember after the game when I was crying, when I was super sad, just how things turned out. I remember those emotions, and those emotions were going to drive me,” Sanders said as he peered around the T-Mobile Center. “So when I'm here in March, and I have the performance that I have, I'm going to be able to look at that and then look back and be like, ‘Okay, yeah, I got here because I worked hard, I prayed, I did what I needed to do and I took care of what I needed to take care of.’”
The Buffs take on St. Mary’s in a closed scrimmage to wrap up the preseason before tipping off opening night against Abilene Christian from the CU Events Center on Nov. 2 (ESPN+).
Main-stage quotes:
- HC Tad Boyle on roster construction: "The biggest thing is you have to focus on your team and what's going on... The one thing about having new players each year, the new guys bring an energy, whether it's the freshmen, whether it's the transfers. We all have them... I try to focus on the returning guys. And these two, along with Ian Inman and Jalin Holland coming back, that's where you start. With your core."
- G Josiah Sanders on what he's focused on this offseason: "I feel like my skill set has taken the biggest step forward in that I understand that I have a broad skill set from the fact that if I'm not having a good night doing one thing, I can do something else and provide that for the team. I think my biggest jump. I was just trying to develop my jump shot so I can open up the court for my teammates and really have a three-level scoring game.”
- G Barrington Hargress on leading the Big 12 in assist-to-turnover ratio: "Really just taking pride and understanding how my teammates are feeling, what I can do to make them succeed, and then also just understanding what I need to succeed. Obviously, I feel like I don't need as much. I feel like I can be very efficient in my game, and I can just stick to what I do, and I can get to my spots very efficiently. So I think that, and just having a strong head on your shoulders, just to make decisions and be confident in my other players. I think that's just something that always plays a factor in those decisions of having a good assist-to-turnover ratio."
JR Payne and WBB
Preseason Coaches’ Poll finish: No. 8 - 126 votes
Greer and her teammates left the T-Mobile Center this October with strengthened friendships and custom ball caps. The second-year forward is building her hat collection, and the stadium is built for memories. Months before, Greer, Walker and Payne left the same venue with a punched ticket to March Madness.
Nevertheless, Big 12 coaches voted the Buffs, who returned their most minutes played in a handful of seasons, eighth in the preseason poll. But that isn’t a worry for CU.
“It's cool. Right now it's all fun and games,” Greer said. “But once we're between the lines, it's business.”
Some of the feelings, or lack thereof, toward the conference’s perception of Colorado stem from understanding the animosity from Big 12 opponents. For a team like Kansas State, which lost to CU in the 2024 national tournament and has yet to avenge the postseason defeat, it’s lost transfers to Payne; while Foy transferred from Manhattan to Boulder this offseason, Walker did the year before. The older former Wildcat also enjoys playing her previous school.
More specifically, though, Colorado built confidence over the offseason, leaving little time to worry about others. For Payne, it started with retaining her core. Then, she added depth via the transfer portal with high-character, hard-working players. The three players all named “depth” as the team’s strong point compared to a season ago.
“We have a more balanced team than maybe we've ever had. I don't know that we've ever had this amount of depth,” Payne said. “So I think we're still figuring it out. Honestly, I think it's going to continue to take time. It's not just seven new players, but it's seven impactful new players.”
Luckily for her, the program got a head start by taking an offseason trip to Portugal to compete in several exhibitions. Payne’s group dominated, going 2-0. But the roster notably built chemistry; it got 10 official practices that usually wouldn’t be available, and the players bonded over off-court activities.
“It's one thing to be able to get to play basketball together,” Payne said. “But when you get to travel to a different part of the world, you're going to the beach, you're doing different things, you're experiencing a totally different culture together. I think that bonding that happens is really hard to replicate anywhere else.”
Naturally, CU is ready to surprise people. It has done so the last few seasons. And while it has depth, it also has some of the conference’s top talent. Walker was named to the All-Big 12 preseason squad, and Greer made the conference’s All-Freshman team a season ago.
Colorado tips off an exhibition against Adams State at 6 p.m. MT on Oct. 27 from the CU Events Center. The regular season begins at home against Morgan State at 7 p.m. MT on Nov. 4 (ESPN+).
Main-stage quotes:
- HC JR Payne on roster construction: "I would say we really loved how this roster came together in the spring... Our team and staff did an amazing job of recruiting the right people to our program... We definitely wanted to add perimeter shooting, which was a huge bugaboo for us last year, and then just versatility; people that can play the style we want to play: tough, physical, aggressive."
- G Aniya' Foy on coming to CU, Zyanna Walker: "Zy was a big piece of me coming to Colorado. She got me here and I'm really grateful for that... I know with this team, I'm going to have a big role... Communicating with Coach J and teammates having my back."
- G Zyanna Walker on what she focused on this offseason: "A lot of things. I definitely think just being more efficient all around, making the right plays, making the right reads. Just because with this team, I am a leader, more experienced, so I got to be able to get my best every single night."
- F Logyn Greer on what she focused on this offseason: "Perimeter shooting was a big thing for me. Also, just being more efficient and more consistent and just growing my voice on this team."
Players Mentioned
Coaches Mentioned
