Last October, as the Colorado football team was weathering a coaching change in the middle of what became a horrendous 1-11 season, it was easy for Buffaloes fans to take solace by looking ahead.

Before the football misery was over, the promise of another hoops season would tip-off.

It’s startling how quickly, and thoroughly, that fan excitement has been reversed.

With the arrival of Deion Sanders as CU’s new coach, the buzz surrounding Buffs football is un-tethered from the normal reality of a program that has posted just one winning record in a full season since 2005. A sold-out spring game expected to draw over 45,000 and a prime broadcast slotting on ESPN is the kind of stuff usually reserved for the Alabamas and Georgias of the college football world, not a program considered one of the worst in the FBS just a few short months ago.

Over at the Events Center, women’s basketball coach JR Payne earned her newly-inked contract extension by leading the Buffs to their first Sweet 16 appearance in 20 years.

All of the sudden coach Tad Boyle and the men’s team no longer is the dependable safety net for Buffs fans. The pressure will be on for Boyle and his Buffs to change that.

Boyle’s 13-season tenure has included five NCAA Tournament appearances — which would have been six if the 2020 tournament had not been canceled at the start of the COVID pandemic — and five NIT appearances, the most recent of which ended with a second-round loss against Utah Valley two weeks ago.

After falling short of the NCAA Tournament the past two seasons, the Buffs likely will need more than just the addition of Cody Williams, the No. 8 recruit in the 2023 class per 247Sports, to get back in the 68-team field. If there was one thing to be gleaned from the Final Four participants that hit the floor in Houston on Saturday, it’s that parity in the game has made an NCAA Tournament run feasible for almost anyone. Boyle and his staff have to win the offseason to turn the program back in that direction, and it will begin by hitting the jackpot in the transfer portal pursuit of a new center.

CU has missed the NCAA tourney three seasons in a row just once under Boyle, between 2017 and 2019 with a pair of NIT appearances bookending that drought (again, the NCAA absence technically extended through four seasons due to the 2020 cancellation, but the Buffs had cemented a spot in the tourney that year). With the sudden and surprising defection of 7-foot-1 Lawson Lovering to Pac-12 rival Utah, Boyle and his staff have an opportunity to significantly upgrade the frontcourt.

On Saturday, national college writer Jon Rothstein from CBS Sports reported that former TCU forward Eddie Lampkin Jr. is set to announce his choice on Sunday from a list of suitors that includes CU, as well as Xavier, Florida, Arkansas, Cincinnati, Memphis and Georgetown. The 6-foot-11 Lampkin played in 24 games this season for TCU (19 starts), averaging 6.3 points and 5.9 rebounds for a team that lost to Gonzaga in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

Boyle didn’t specifically state what sort of athlete he prefers for that post role, but it’s not difficult to read between the lines when he recently told BuffZone: “Having coached Lawson now for two years and having coached Evan Battey for five, we’re going to look at all avenues.” If more brawn highlights the shopping list, the 263-pound Lampkin fits the mold, as does former Wyoming forward Graham Ike. The 6-foot-9, 255-pound Ike starred at Overland High in Aurora and was named the Mountain West Conference preseason player of the year last fall, but he missed the entire season due to a foot injury.

The loss of Lovering stung, but his production is replaceable. If the Buffs upgrade in the middle, chances are they will be well-placed to join the CU athletics buzz that left them behind this winter.