Michigan State takes on Colorado in the opening round of the Maui Invitational Monday in Hawaii.
HEAD COACH: Tad Boyle played at Kansas from the early to mid-1980s. He is in his 15th year as the Colorado coach and has a 302-183 record. Before that, he coached at Northern Colorado. He played under Larry Brown at Kansas and played with Danny Manning.
CAR ACCIDENT CHANGED BOYLE'S LIFE: A car accident in 1994 changed Boyle's career forever. A six-figure stock broker, Boyle, was heading to work one morning when somebody ran a red light and plowed into his vehicle. The collision crushed the front of Boyle's car, and he was knocked unconscious. Boyle received a phone call from former University of Kansas teammate Mark Turgeon, then an assistant at Oregon. Turgeon stated that there was an opening on Oregon's staff, but it was a restricted earnings position that paid $16,000 a year. Boyle, who was unmarried then, decided to plunge into a full-time coaching gig.
BOYLE ON PLAYING IN THE BIG 12: "The fact that we were picked 15th in the media poll should put a chip on our shoulder," Boyle said. "And I think it's put a chip on our players' shoulders. I know it's put a chip on my shoulder."
The sixteen-team conference has six teams ranked in the Associated Press's preseason top 25 poll. Five teams are ranked in the top 10. (No. 1 Kansas, No. 4 Houston, No. 5 Iowa State, No. 8 Baylor, No. 10 Arizona, No. 20 Cincinnati)
Boyle comments on Big 12: "We're coming into a monster of a league."
Colorado returns the fewest Division I minutes played in Boyle's 15-year tenure at Colorado. Colorado's preseason rank in the Big 12 is No. 15, only above Utah's 16th in the Big 12 preseason media poll.
COLORADO MEDIA DAY: Players Javon Ruffin, Julian Hammond III, and Andrej Jakimovski represented the Buffs at Big 12 media day.