After stocking up on future prospects in the backcourt, Colorado added a prep big man.
Arizona prep star Tacko Fawaz announced his commitment to the Buffaloes for the 2025 class on Friday, as first reported by 247Sports. Fawaz, a 6-foot-10, 235-pound forward, is a 3-star recruit who also garnered offers from Oklahoma State, Providence, St. John’s and Seton Hall, according to 247Sports.
Fawaz is teammates at Dream City Christian in Glendale, Ariz., with 6-foot-4 guard Jalin Holland, who committed to the Buffs last month. The Buffs also have 2025 commitments from guards Ian Inman, Isaiah Johnson and Denver’s Josiah Sanders.
On paper, the Buffs and head coach Tad Boyle have oversigned for the second year in a row, with the Buffs expected to lose four seniors after the 2024-25 season (Julian Hammond III, Elijah Malone, Andrej Jakimovski, Trevor Baskin). However, losing students to the transfer portal has become the norm after every season, and even if that doesn’t happen, the Buffs also face the possibility of a higher scholarship limit next year .
As part of the House rule paving the way for some form of revenue sharing for student-athletes, scholarship and enrollment limits across all athletic programs will likely soon be changed. In men’s basketball, the scholarship limit is expected to increase from 13 to 15. Boyle, however, typically has a larger roster thanks to alternates, but those rosters in the future will be capped at 15 (this year’s roster has 17 players – the 13 scholarship holders plus four substitutes).
Boyle discussed potential future scholarship/roster limits this week at Big 12 Conference media day.
“I thought about it. But again, until we know for sure what next year is going to look like, it’s hard to make decisions,” Boyle said. “I approach it like we’re going to have 13. If we have 15, then you decide, what’s the best way to do it? And what will our budget be? If this fee-for-service model – or revenue sharing, whatever you want to call it, what will our budget be? Until we know the answer to this question, it is difficult to know what you will do with your 15 scholarships.
“You anticipate what we will do if that happens and you kind of have a model. But that will largely depend on how the season goes. Until you have these answers, you prepare yourself for each different scenario you might face. This is what we do.
High-profile matches
Unsurprisingly, the Buffs are looking forward to the glut of important matchups they’ll face in the Big 12, which has five teams in the preseason AP top 25, including No. 1 Kansas.
CU was supposed to host Kansas at the start of the 2021-22 season, when senior Julian Hammond III was a freshman, but the game was canceled due to COVID concerns.
“That first year we were supposed to play them,” Hammond said. “But driving earlier in the day, you see a lot more people in Boulder. You see, the atmosphere is very different. I’m excited for this and all the other big games we’ll play, the big games.
Notable
The Buffs will play Texas on Sunday in a closed scrimmage in the final tune-up before the Nov. 4 home opener against Eastern Washington (7 p.m., ESPN+). …Former Buffs Cody Williams and Tristan da Silva, both drafted in the first round last summer, made their NBA debuts Wednesday, with Williams scoring his first two points on a pair of free throws and adding four rebounds in 19 minutes on the bench. for Utah in a two-point opening loss to Memphis. Da Silva played five minutes for Orlando, missing his only field goal attempt (a 3-pointer). … Derrick White is off to a torrid start for the defending champion Boston Celtics, going 14 of 23 overall and 10 of 17 from 3-point range in the first two games.