Colorado’s summer workouts have given the Buffaloes a clearer picture of who’s setting the tone, and assistant coach Tyson Gilbert says three veteran voices have separated themselves as the team works through a roster with 10 new players.
Barrington Hargress remains the lone returning veteran who logged meaningful minutes in 2025, and Gilbert said the guard has carried himself like the standard-bearer. Hargress is coming off what Gilbert called one of the best seasons in Colorado history, and his unselfish style has already rubbed off on the rest of the room.
“Barrington has been great,” Gilbert said. “He had one of the best seasons in Colorado history last year.
He’s just a selfless dude; I mean, a four-to-one assist-to-turnover ratio is incredible. And he’s brought that same mindset of trying to portray his selflessness to the rest of the program, and you see it in these guys.”
Colorado is still expecting even more from Hargress in 2026. The staff wants him to expand his role, and he could wind up as the team’s leading scorer while continuing to distribute at a high level.
Noah Feddersen has also made an early impression after arriving from North Dakota State, where he came from a winning program and experienced a conference championship run and a trip to March Madness in 2025. Gilbert pointed to that background as part of what has made Feddersen such a steady presence.
“With Noah, he came from a winning program at North Dakota State,” Gilbert said. “His habits are great and you can see that for sure.”
Feddersen, for his part, has been blunt about where tournament teams are built. He said the work done in the summer matters just as much as anything that happens later in the calendar.
“The biggest thing is that you don’t get [to March Madness] at the end of the season; you get there right now,” Feddersen said. “[You get there] by working hard in the summer and then having a solid season through and through, game by game. You don’t get there in the last week of the season; you’ve got to work every day, every week, every month, keeping your head down until you lift it up in March and see the results.”
Justin Neely has brought another layer of leadership to the group. Gilbert described him as Colorado’s most historically productive incoming transfer and said that production has shown up immediately in practice.
“Justin, he’s a worker,” Gilbert said. “He competes, and that competitive edge that he brings to practice is huge for us. I think that’s really going to help us.”
Freshman forward Rider Portela has already felt that influence, citing Neely as the leader who has made the biggest impact on him. Portela also praised the way Neely works during practice and keeps teammates locked in.
Gilbert said the bigger takeaway is that the younger players have responded to the veterans’ approach instead of waiting on someone else to set the tone. That buy-in, he said, has started to create leadership throughout the roster.
“The young guys are really taking hold of the way that they compete and the way that they are trying to lead the group,” Gilbert said. “Everybody is here for the same goal, and you can really tell with this group and how they get after it every day.”
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