Is Colorado our bball's version of an ugly twin?

[Guest BasketBull.]

Updated: April 4, 2007, 7:42 PM ET

Bzdelik signs 5-year deal with Buffaloes

BOULDER, Colo. -- A fading, mostly empty arena. The likes of Bob Knight and Bill Self to compete against on the hardwood and along the recruiting trail. A program with no real history of success or much support.

Bring it all on, declared Jeff Bzdelik.

He left Air Force to take over as basketball coach at the University of Colorado on Wednesday, the latest in a series of career challenges he's undertaken up and down the Rocky Mountain front range.

"I get excited by great, great challenges," said Bzdelik, who was 50-16 at Air Force after a 2½-year stint as coach of the Denver Nuggets, whom he led to the playoffs for the first time in a decade in 2004.

"When somebody said to me, 'You're never going to win there,' I'm kind of a sicko with that," Bzdelik said. "It's kind of like with the Nuggets: 'You're never going to make the playoffs.' Hey, we did it in one year."

[...]

Now, his biggest challenge yet.

"Maybe we can't" turn it around, Bzdelik said. "Maybe I don't [succeed]. Maybe I fail. But I want to try."

[...] Bzdelik signed a five-year deal worth $750,000 annually plus incentives. Athletic director Mike Bohn also promised him that the school would seek funding to build a new practice facility next to the basketball arena. [...]

[...] Buffaloes players were eager for their first workout on Friday under Bzdelik and his Princeton-style offense, which sophomore Xavier Silas thought would be a good fit at Colorado.

"Seeing what he's done at Air Force, I think that it's a great style of play for us, a lot of backdoor cuts, movement, a lot of screens and very unselfish basketball," concurred sophomore Sean Kowal. [...]

ESPN LINK for the rest of the story

[Joe]

Colorado has been to the NCAAs recently, and the NIT the 2 of the last 4 years.

However, the football team's massively publicized sex recruiting basically killed all the sports on campus. They had sterile recruiting that wasn't very inviting for potential student athletes.

Their coach had them going in the right direction, just outside factors killed him and the job. That is why he latched on somewhere quickly after being canned.

Don't get me wrong COlorado has never been a power per se, but they were a middle of the Big 12 team for the last 10 years or so.

[HarveyGlass]

"Maybe we can't" turn it around, Bzdelik said. "Maybe I don't [succeed]. Maybe I fail."

That's what I want to hear from my coach. ;D

[bulls96go]

^^^ but i want to try.... :-?

why leave that out?