Colorado makes NIT Tournament, to play UCF

We can breathe a sigh of relief — this season will go on.

The Colorado Buffaloes were selected to play in the National Invitational Tournament. The Buffs are the 5th-seed in their 8-team region and will play the Central Florida (UCF) Golden Knights* (21-11, American Athletic Conference) on Wednesday night at 5:00 pm (MST), which will air on ESPN3.

Colorado may not have the higher seed, but they match up with the Golden Knights*. UCF is one of the most defensive-minded teams in the nation — they’re 5th in the nation with 60.6 points allowed per game — but they give up a lot of three-pointers and don’t have any perimeter defender capable of staying in front of Derrick White.

Also of note, Tad Boyle owns UCF’s coach Johnny Dawkins, formerly of Stanford. Boyle is 6-2 all-time against Dawkins, and both those losses were in 2012 when Dawkins had arguably his most talented team that had three future NBA players.

As usual, Colorado’s biggest challenge will be themselves. If they show up focused, ready to execute and hit open shots, they should be able to advance in the NIT.

If Colorado advances, they will likely travel to Normal, Illinois to play 1st-seeded Illinois State (27-6, Missouri Valley Conference). If Illinois State loses to 8th-seeded UC Irvine, the Buffs would host their second round game at the Coors Events Center.

As such, Colorado potential second round date, time and location is TBD at the moment, but we will update accordingly.

*UCF fans have yelled at me on Twitter because apparently the team’s mascot is the Knight, not a Golden Knight, which they changed in 2007. The Knights are still golden to us, so we’ll continue to refer them as such.