The next phase began earlier this month for the Colorado men’s basketball team. And it’s a transition the Buffaloes hope will come with a reversal of fortune in the Big 12 Conference.

Josiah Sanders expects to play a key role in that turnaround.

While the fortunes of the Buffs in 2025-26 will fall heavily upon the shoulders of the returning frontcourt trio of Bangot Dak, Elijah Malone and Sebastian Rancik, in addition to transfer guard Barrington Hargress, next season will also offer a youth movement of sorts for coach Tad Boyle’s program.

Sanders will be at the forefront of that movement as one of the key recruits in a five-player freshman class that began summer workouts in Boulder earlier this month. The guard out of Colorado Prep is the latest in a long line of Boyle-era in-state recruits for the Buffs, and Sanders likely will be counted on to produce immediately as a rookie.

“Ever since high school ended I’ve just been super excited to get up here,” Sanders said. “Just utilizing the resources we have, the people, the shooting machines and managers, everybody I can to get better at the game of basketball.“There’s definitely more attention to detail here. Everything’s just elevated because it’s Big 12 basketball.”

Sanders was ranked as the top recruit in the state by 247Sports, which also lists the 6-foot-4 Sanders as a four-star prospect who is ranked 125th nationally. Fellow freshman guard Jalin Holland checks in at No. 128.

Sanders was born in San Antonio but did most of his growing up in Colorado, first in Monument before moving to Denver. Among Sanders’ lengthy list of offers reportedly were programs like Stanford, Wake Forest, San Diego State and Tennessee. But despite the lure of several intriguing opportunities, it was Sanders’ longstanding relationship with Boyle and CU associate head coach/recruiting coordinator Mike Rohn that steered him to Boulder.

“Going through the recruiting process, I went and looked at other schools. There’s great programs, great coaches,” Sanders said. “But what it came down to for me was the longevity and the relationship I have with coach Boyle, coach Rohn and the whole coaching staff. I felt like I trusted them and they trusted me, and that meant more than anything. That was really the main thing, just the relationship I had with them and the opportunity to play as well. Because I wanted to step into high-level basketball at a young age and be able to produce, and have people that trusted me that I could produce at a high level. That was the main difference between them and other schools.”

A combo guard who can play the point, Sanders likely will be paired often in the backcourt with Hargress, who led the Big West Conference in scoring last season at UC Riverside. With a large mix of newcomers and inexperience, the Buffs will look to get plenty of mileage out of their summer workouts, as well as the 10 practices allowed ahead of the team’s four-game exhibition tour of Australia later this summer.

“I feel like it’s a great opportunity, on and off the court,” Sanders said. “We’ll be traveling together. We’ll be able to get closer to each other. And then on the court, we’ll be able to put what we’re doing in practice into an actual game. It means everything just to have those couple games and that experience as a team. It’ll definitely give us a jump-start going into the season for sure.”