Good or bad, last impres­sions often prove to be the most enduring.

In the case of the Col­orado men’s bas­ket­ball team, the angst of the final impres­sion left on the floor last sea­son has been damp­ened by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, which has cast NCAA ath­let­ics into dis­ar­ray pret­ty much since the moment the Buf­faloes trudged off the floor in March after a quick ouster in the Pac-12 Con­fer­ence tournament.

From fol­low­ing test­ing pro­to­cols to the off-the-court sac­ri­fices required to keep healthy in col­lege basketball’s pan­dem­ic sea­son, the Buffs have had oth­er headaches to deal with than how they end­ed the 2019–20 season.

On Wednes­day those sum­mer and fall sac­ri­fices final­ly will come to fruition, as CU at long last gets a chance to start mak­ing amends for last year’s late swoon in a much-antic­i­pat­ed sea­son open­er against South Dako­ta at a mul­ti-team event host­ed by Kansas State.

“We’re ready to go. We can’t wait to get out on the floor,” senior wing D’Shawn Schwartz said. “It’s been a long time com­ing. It felt extra long just because we haven’t had any inter­nal sources of fun. Now it’s just like when you get on that court, that’s the get­away. That’s the get­away from Zoom, from the room, all that. We’re so ready to play. It’s going to be a fun time.”

The Buffs were on track to return to the NCAA Tour­na­ment for the first time since 2016 last March, but when the onset of the pan­dem­ic forced the can­cel­la­tion of the tour­na­ment, the Buffs were left to stew on the five-game los­ing streak that turned a pos­si­ble run at the Pac-12 title into a tum­ble down the tour­na­ment seed projections.

As was the case for just about every­body, the off­sea­son turned into being less about putting a fin­ger on what went wrong to turn­ing the page and remain­ing healthy and safe enough to com­pete again in 2020–21. Though league rivals like Ari­zona and Ari­zona State have suf­fered hic­cups with their sea­son open­ers, and region­al peers like Col­orado State and DU have momen­tar­i­ly been shut down, the Buffs are ready to roll.

“These kids have worked too hard. They’ve come too far,” said head coach Tad Boyle, who begins his 11th sea­son at CU. “Again, most of our schol­ar­ship play­ers have been on cam­pus since June 7. They went home a lit­tle bit in August and had to do some quar­an­tine when they came back. But think about it — from June 7 until now, they’ve han­dled their busi­ness. They’ve worked hard. They have sac­ri­ficed social­ly. They’ve sac­ri­ficed with their fam­i­lies, not being around them and not going home and see­ing them when they’d like to. Before we start prac­tice in the fall we usu­al­ly give our guys the week­end off to go home and see them one more time because this sea­son is going to be a long one. We couldn’t even do that.

“I’m just real­ly proud of our guys. It will be a spe­cial tipoff. More so this year than others.”

While the Buffs boast plen­ty of tal­ent­ed vet­er­ans like Schwartz, McKin­ley Wright IV, Evan Bat­tey, and grad­u­ate trans­fer Jeri­ah Horne, the pro­gram also wel­comes a num­ber of rook­ies, from red­shirt fresh­man guard Kee­shawn Barthele­my to four true fresh­men — Nique Clif­ford, Tris­tan da Sil­va, Luke O’Brien and Jabari Walk­er. Depend­ing on how Wednesday’s game unfolds, the long list of poten­tial rota­tion play­ers means the mix might look dif­fer­ent when CU takes on Kansas State on Friday.

“Those are dif­fi­cult deci­sions that we’re going to have to make this year,” Boyle said. “I’m try­ing to be rea­son­able with our play­ers and their expec­ta­tion lev­els when it comes to those min­utes. Our guys are going to have to under­stand they’re prob­a­bly all not going to get the min­utes they want, or maybe some­times deserve. You can’t play 13 guys. We’re going to have a rota­tion of eight to nine, eight to 10. Some guys on the out­side of that have to under­stand that that’s the way it is today, or it is that game. But the next game could be total­ly different.”

CU Buffs men’s bas­ket­ball vs. South Dakota

TIPOFF: Wednes­day, 6 p.m. MT, Bram­lage Col­i­se­um, Man­hat­tan, Kan.

BROADCAST: TV — ESPN+ (Sub­scrip­tion required); Radio — 850 AM.

RECORDS (2019–20): South Dako­ta 20–12; Col­orado 21–11.

KEY MATCHUP: The Buffs vs. 2020. Against an oppo­nent CU should han­dle, it will be inter­est­ing to see what kind of ener­gy the Buffs can gen­er­ate in an emp­ty are­na away from home.

TOP PLAYERS (Top returnees with 2019–20 sta­tis­tics): South Dako­ta — G Stan­ley Umude, Sr., 16.7 ppg, 6.3 rpg; G Ty Chi­som, Sr., 4.0 ppg. Col­orado — G McKin­ley Wright, Sr., 14.4 ppg, 5.7 rpg, 5.0 apg; G/F D’Shawn Schwartz, Sr., 9.8 ppg, 3.6 rpg; F Evan Bat­tey, R‑Jr., 8.9 ppg, 5.9 rpg, .526 field goal percentage.

NOTES: CU has won its past four sea­son open­ers and is 8–2 in open­ers under Boyle…After open­ing last sea­son with a win against Ari­zona State in the Pac-12’s annu­al game in Chi­na, this will mark the first time since 1973–74 (at Air Force) and 1974–75 (at Cal) the Buffs have opened two con­sec­u­tive sea­sons away from home…South Dako­ta lost five of its top six scor­ers from a 20-win last sea­son and fea­tures a ros­ter lit­tered with trans­fers and play­ers who red­shirt­ed last season…The Coy­otes were picked fifth in the pre­sea­son Sum­mit League poll…The teams have met just once, with CU post­ing an 82–58 win at home two years ago. Schwartz and Bat­tey shared the team lead in that game with 14 points apiece…Wright begins the sea­son with 501 career assists, need­ing 62 to sur­pass Jay Humphries as the Buffs’ all-time leader. Wright also has record­ed sev­en games with at least 10 assists, trail­ing Humphries’ CU record of eight…CU plays Kansas State on Fri­day in the teams’ first matchup since the Buffs left the Big 12 Con­fer­ence fol­low­ing the 2010-11 sea­son, which also was Boyle’s first year at CU.