KANSAS CITY, Mo. >> It has been nearly four years since the Colorado men’s basketball team signed the most highly regarded recruiting class in program history.

The group certainly has enjoyed its moments, thanks mostly to KJ Simpson. Yet as a unit the group has suffered significant attrition, and the five players signed in November of 2020 have collectively brought mixed reviews to Boulder.

Julian Hammond III and Javon Ruffin still have an opportunity to script the final chapters for the 2021 class.

That pair of senior guards, along with graduate transfer Andrej Jakimovski, represented the Buffaloes on Wednesday at the Big 12 Conference men’s basketball media day. Hammond and Ruffin have been productive when on the floor, but both have battled injury setbacks.

This year, with the rest of their recruiting classmates now long gone, Hammond and Ruffin will be tasked with leading the way for a new-look Buffs rotation that will be thin on Division I experience beyond the trio that made the trip to Kansas City.

“I haven’t gotten a ton of opportunities to show what I can do, but I’m proud to be part of that class,” Ruffin said.

“I think us being here, in this era, shows who we are. We’re loyal to where we came from. That’s the biggest part of being part of this class. There’s not many four-year guys left.”

Simpson put together one of the greatest seasons in program history last year before getting selected by Charlotte in the second round of this year’s NBA Draft.

But that counts as the most significant, and nearly solitary, achievement by the 2021 class, which was ranked as the top group in the Pac-12 and 13th nationally by 247Sports.

Two players left after two seasons, with Quincy Allen set to play for his third team in three years at Chicago State after failing to crack the CU rotation. Center Lawson Lovering did break into the rotation and showed promise as a starter in 2022-23, but he is beginning his second season at Utah.

Although Hammond and Ruffin were the lowest-ranked players in the class, Hammond has been a productive rotation player for three years.

However, while he put up a few career-best numbers last year, he also missed 13 games, including the final 11, while battling back and knee injuries.

Ruffin also has been productive when healthy, but he hasn’t been healthy often, as a knee injury kept him sidelined the entire 2021-22 season before limiting him to 42 total games the past two years.

Recruiting rankings, of course, are entirely subjective, and every class is probably best judged retrospectively.

CU’s 2017 class, for instance, was ranked 13 spots behind the 2021 group.

Yet it ultimately produced four 1,000-point scorers (McKinley Wright IV, Tyler Bey, Evan Battey, D’Shawn Schwartz), an NBA draft pick (Bey) and the program’s all-time assists leader (Wright). That group also led the run to the second round of the 2021 NCAA Tournament, and they would’ve played in the 2020 tournament had it not been canceled at the start of the COVID pandemic.

The 2020 recruiting class was ranked only 45th but featured two eventual NBA draft picks (Jabari Walker, Tristan da Silva), and still has a chance for a third as Nique Clifford plays his fifth season at Colorado State this year.