KANSAS CITY — Although they are unbeat­en on the young sea­son, the Col­orado men’s bas­ket­ball team has plen­ty of home­work to tack­le before attempt­ing to win at a place where the Buf­faloes have nev­er won since join­ing the Pac-12 Conference.

Yet the num­ber one pri­or­i­ty in the com­ing days for coach Tad Boyle’s club will not be shoring up its rebound­ing effi­cien­cy, or find­ing anoth­er con­sis­tent scor­ing threat besides point guard McKin­ley Wright, who has put togeth­er a tor­rid start to his senior season.

It will be test­ing, test­ing, and more test­ing. And not the kind that occurs in the classroom.

The Buffs improved to 2–0 Fri­day night with its sec­ond thor­ough vic­to­ry in as many games at the Lit­tle Apple Clas­sic in Kansas, roar­ing back from a slug­gish start to beat the host Kansas State Wild­cats, 76–58. CU did it short­hand­ed, play­ing its sec­ond game with­out senior D’Shawn Schwartz, who on Wednes­day test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19. Two of CU’s new­com­ers, red­shirt fresh­man Kee­shawn Barthele­my and true fresh­man Tris­tan da Sil­va, were forced to the side­line for the Kansas State game via con­tact trac­ing from Schwartz’s pos­i­tive result.

Every­one with­in the pro­gram will be cross­ing their fin­gers in the com­ing days for that trio to remain the extent of the dam­age as the Buffs get set to open Pac-12 play at Ari­zona on Wednes­day night (6 p.m. MT, Pac-12 Networks).

“We’ll get test­ed on Sun­day. We’ll get test­ed on Mon­day. We’ll get test­ed on Tues­day. And we’ll go into Tuc­son and hope­ful­ly have enough guys in uni­form to play a game,” Boyle said. “Our play­ers men­tal­ly are in a good spot. I wouldn’t say they’re not wor­ried about the virus, but they’re not going to let it get them down. Every­body says our oppo­nent is the virus. Well guess what? Our guys, they’re ready to fight it. They want to be able to play. Obvi­ous­ly we want every­body to be healthy and every­body to be safe. But I know our play­ers, man they are all hands on deck.”

Boyle said the scene on Thanks­giv­ing was one of the most dif­fi­cult of his head coach­ing career, describ­ing hav­ing to deliv­er Thanks­giv­ing din­ner to Barthele­my and da Sil­va in their hotel rooms as “heart­break­ing” dur­ing KOA’s pregame show Fri­day. Fol­low­ing a vic­to­ry in which the Buffs outscored K‑State 67–36 after trail­ing by 13 points just 11 min­utes into the game, Boyle said the con­ver­sa­tions he had with Barthele­my and da Sil­va were the most dif­fi­cult ones he has had to under­take with any play­er since arriv­ing at CU almost 11 years ago.

“The sec­ond-hard­est con­ver­sa­tion I’ve ever had to have with a stu­dent-ath­lete since I’ve been a head coach for 15 years,” Boyle said. “The first one was telling the team at North­ern Col­orado, when I was for­tu­nate enough to get the Col­orado job, telling those kids at North­ern Col­orado I was leav­ing. A lot of tears. But the sec­ond hard­est was that con­ver­sa­tion with Tris­tan and Kee­shawn, telling them they’re going to be out for an indef­i­nite peri­od of time. We’d like to short­en it if we can. If we can, we will. If we can’t, we won’t. We’ll get a feel for that (this) week. Our med­ical staff has done a great job. They’ve giv­en us great advice. We’ve just got to deal with it and move on. We did that (Fri­day). We were short­hand­ed, but that’s the beau­ty of hav­ing 13 guys on scholarships.”

The Pac-12 is fol­low­ing CDC guide­lines for a 14-day quar­an­tine for those who test pos­i­tive or are pos­si­bly exposed, mean­ing Schwartz, Barthele­my and da Sil­va will be side­lined for at least the next three games. There have been reports that time frame might be short­ened to 10 days, but that as yet is not official.

In the mean­time, the Buffs will focus on their ear­li­est Pac-12 game on record at Ari­zona, where the Buffs are 0–7 since join­ing the league.

“I haven’t won there yet. I’ve been there twice and I real­ly, real­ly want to win there,” Wright said. “Coach Boyle wants to win there. I’m going to do every­thing I can, and I know my team­mates are going to be with me.”