From the start of preseason practice in late September until the finish line, the college basketball season is a six-month grind.

That grind ended for the Colorado men’s team on Thursday. Yet for CU head coach Tad Boyle, the busy season is just beginning.

In the aftermath of the season finale, a 77-68 loss against top-seeded, No. 2-ranked Houston in the Big 12 tournament quarterfinals, Boyle said it essentially will take no time at all to turn the page to the 2025-26 season.

The return season in the Big 12 ended with the eighth 20-loss year in program history (14-20). Although the last-place Bu?s saved a little pride by winning a pair of games at the Big 12 tournament, Boyle said he expects to begin immediately the process of making certain another miserable season doesn’t happen again.

“It’s amazing how my job will get busier starting (Friday),” Boyle said. “Everybody thinks, ‘Oh, the season’s over with, go take a few weeks o? and go to the beach.’ Nothing could be further from the truth. I’ll be busier the next three to four weeks than I have been all year. It’s the busiest time for a college basketball coach.

“Because you’ve got to find out with your young guys who’s coming back, who wants to come back, who do you want back. All those conversations need to be had with them.”

As has been the typical procedure during Boyle’s 15-season tenure, he expects to begin conducting one-on-one meetings with the CU players this weekend. Those meetings usually clarify who is planning to return, and what players will seek changes of scenery via the transfer portal.

“I have a sense,” Boyle said regarding which underclassmen might stay and which might leave. “But you never know until you have those meetings.”

CU is losing senior guards Julian Hammond III and Javon Ru?n, who might still use his final season of eligibility elswehere, as well as graduate transfers Andrej Jakimovski and Trevor Baskin. Another graduate transfer, Elijah Malone, is trending toward a return after a blanket NCAA waiver from earlier this season granted an extra year of eligibility for former junior college and NAIA players.Boyle said he plans to maintain the 13 scholarship total, even with rosters set to expand to 15 in men’s college basketball. With the Bu?s set to add five incoming freshmen, and with Malone possibly returning, CU currently projects to have 14 scholarship players, but in today’s game it’s all but a certainty at least one of the Bu?s’ underclassmen will opt for the portal.

“Obviously we got a great recruiting class in November,” Boyle said. “We’ve got five terrific young men from great families. That’s not going to change. What we bring into the program is going to be character, guys that want to work hard. We’ve got to look and be very introspective. I have to do it as a coach. Our sta? has to do it. Each player has to do it in terms of what they need to get better at, whether they stay at Colorado or go somewhere else.”