Following the annual May lull, it will be a busy summer for the Colorado men’s basketball team.

The returning Buffaloes were allowed to go their separate ways following the end of finals nearly two weeks ago, but June 1 will mark the unofficial first day of work for the 2025-26 squad.

The Buffs are scheduled to reconvene that day, with the bulk of the five incoming freshmen and the two committed transfers expected to begin their first workouts and, in most cases, first classes at CU.

The exceptions will be freshman guard Isaiah Johnson and Denver transfer Jon Mani, both of whom will join their new teammates later in June because their respective schools end later in the academic year.

CU’s other four incoming freshmen — Josiah Sanders, Ian Inman, Jalin Holland and Fawaz “Tacko” Ifaola — as well as UC Riverside transfer Barrington Hargress are set to arrive June 1 to begin summer workouts that also will include an overseas exhibition trip to Australia.

“It’s always important, but with this year’s upcoming team I think it’s even more so,” head coach Tad Boyle said of his club’s summer program. “The other thing we’ve got is our foreign trip. It’s a jump-start on the season is how I look at it. It’s extremely important, to me, for a couple of reasons. Obviously the basketball piece of it is great. Ten practices, we get four games when we’re over there. That’s a jump-start on things.”

Per NCAA rules, teams are allowed one overseas exhibition trip every four years and, like this year, CU’s most recent international excursions have occurred while the Buffs have welcomed a glut of youngsters to the roster.

In 2021, months after reaching the second round of the NCAA Tournament, the Buffs traveled to Costa Rica with a roster that had just bid farewell to battle-tested veterans like McKinley Wright IV and D’Shawn Schwartz while adding a freshman class that included KJ Simpson and Julian Hammond III. Rarely are particular games or plays recalled fondly in program lore from international exhibition trips, but that Costa Rica trip might forever be remembered for the game that ended early when Jabari Walker shattered a backboard on a dunk.

In 2017, CU traveled to Italy when a freshman class that included Wright, Schwartz, Tyler Bey and Evan Battey were new to campus.

“I think maybe even more important is the life experience,” Boyle said. “It’s a great opportunity for these young people to see the world, and see a part of the world most of them, if not all of them, have not experienced. To me, when you talk about college athletics today, you talk about pay for play and all this stuff, one thing that gets lost is the education that these guys are working towards and receiving. But the other part is a trip like this, and this life experience that for some of them will be once in a lifetime.”

Boyle said he hopes that by June 1 he will fill the vacant staff position that opened when Zach Ruebesam took the head coach job at Division II CSU-Pueblo. Boyle also said he and his staff will look to fill a couple roster spots with walk-ons, while still looking to add at least one scholarship spot.

“We’re looking at walk-ons, and we’ll also look at adding one more piece of the puzzle,” Boyle said. “We’re still in the process of that.”