Tad Boyle never claimed to be close friends with Hall of Fame hoopster Bill Walton.
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Still, Walton was one of college basketball’s all-time greats at UCLA, and then a two-time NBA champion, while Boyle was turning a standout prep career in Greeley into a scholarship at Kansas.
If you played ball, you were well aware of Walton.
Years later, Walton used his original and outspoken voice to become one of the game’s unique broadcasters, frequently calling Pac-12 games during Colorado’s 13 years in the league. Add in the fact Walton was an avowed Deadhead, and a regular attendee of the Dead and Company’s summer shows at Folsom Field, and in many ways it’s fitting Boyle’s Buffaloes will take part in the first Bill Walton Classic.
CU and the showcase organizers announced the matchup last week, as the Buffs will take on San Diego State at Pechanga Arena on Nov. 7 — the first Saturday of the regular season. CU, matching up with SDSU for the first time since Jan. 5, 1976, will be the only team in the men-women doubleheader not from San Diego, Walton’s hometown. The women’s game will feature UC San Diego against the University of San Diego.
“Obviously being an ex-member of the Pac-12, he was such a voice for that league in the 13 years we were in it,” Boyle said of Walton, who passed away in 2024. “Certainly I got to know him personally. He did a lot of our games. I had great, great respect for him as a player. And I had a lot of respect for him as an announcer. He did his homework. He was at shoot-around. He was engaged. He was a special guy.”
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Boyle said the matchup in the Bill Walton Classic likely completes the road portion of CU’s nonconference schedule. Like last season, the Buffs will play a pair of neutral-floor games in Palm Desert, California, as part of the Acrisure Series the week of Thanksgiving. CU also will travel to Providence for the first time to complete a home-and-home series that began with a Buffs victory at the Events Center last season.
The Big 12 doesn’t typically release the full conference schedule until September, but the matchups for the 18-game league slate were announced last week. CU will play home-and-home sets against Baylor, Houston and Utah, and will host matchups against Arizona State, BYU, Cincinnati, Iowa State, Texas Tech and West Virginia. The Buffs will play road dates at Arizona, Central Florida, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma State and TCU.
The NCAA is increasing the maximum number of regular season games to 32 this year, up from 31, leaving the Buffs with eight of 14 nonconference dates to fill, likely all of them at home. The Acrisure Series will include a still-to-be-determined home date, and the Buffs also will complete the latest three-game agreement with Colorado State at home. Beyond that, though, Boyle said he and assistant coach Nate Tomlinson are still working to fill the nonconference home dates.
“We’ve still got a couple more to get,” Boyle said. “I haven’t talked to (Tomlinson) about it since the middle of last week, so that’s something I’m going to look into (this week).”
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