Colorado athletic director Rick George more than likely has surprised men’s basketball coach Tad Boyle a few times over the years.

Yet few of the conversations within a working relationship that has nearly reached 12 years may have stunned Boyle more than the one that transpired last week.

As the Big 12 Conference tournament unfolded, and the last-place Buffaloes won a pair of games to save a little face from their 3-17 finish in the league, a postseason slot — no matter how unreasonable or unprecedented — no longer was out of the question.

Boyle recounted a little of this back story on Tuesday, as he met the local media for what normally would have been an end-of-season debriefing but instead turned into the launching point for CU’s excursion in the inaugural College Basketball Crown.

A CU team that owns the eighth 20-loss campaign in program history and the second-longest losing streak in team history will nonetheless begin postseason play in the FOX-based tournament against Villanova on April 1 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.

“It started in Kansas City. We started playing better at the end of the year,” Boyle said.

“Obviously we won a couple games and made it to the quarterfinals there. Rick George was really the main point of contact with us. And he was communicating to me, and I was a little shocked that they wanted us, quite frankly, with the kind of year we had.“It’s hard when you’ve gone through the year we went through to think clearly sometimes. But I know personally anytime we have a chance to compete and play, I remember a few years back (2014-15) we played in the CBI — and we’ll not do that again, obviously — with that team, one of the problems we had with that team was they kind of picked and chose when they wanted to compete. That’s not how I’m built. If you have a chance to compete, let’s go compete.”

With spring break happening next week and many players assuming the end had arrived when the Buffs lost to Houston in the Big 12 quarterfinals last week, Boyle said he had to make certain enough of his roster would be fully bought-in for one last tournament. At the end of those discussions, though, Boyle drove home one point in particular.

“What I told our players was if you don’t want to be playing in March,” he said, “you may need to look in the mirror and figure out why you’re playing college basketball.”

With the transfer portal opening for college basketball on March 24, there is a chance the Buffs’ roster will be somewhat diminished by April 1. Participating in the CBC doesn’t prohibit players from entering afterward, but often the longer a player waits to enter the portal, he or she runs the risk of missing potential opportunities.

Boyle didn’t comment specifically on the status of his players, beyond a pair of injury situations. Freshman forward Sebastian Rancik was labeled “questionable” for the Vegas venture following the left knee injury that knocked him out of the game against Houston. Boyle also said senior guard Julian Hammond III is unlikely to play in order to fully recover from a back injury that limited him down the stretch before Hammond starts trying to sort his professional options. “The end of the season is always emotional. Especially when the players didn’t know that this was a possibility,” Boyle said. “Some guys were excited. Some guys were a little reluctant. But I think they’re excited now. It was an interesting process. I probably should have given them a little bit more of a heads-up, but it kind of came together OK.”