CU women’s basketball features 10 newcomers and international makeup, but same NCAA Tournament goal

BOULDER — It’s a new-look team this season, but the bar remains the same for CU women’s basketball.

Coming off three straight NCAA Tournament appearances and consecutive Sweet 16 trips, the Buffs have 10 fresh faces on the roster with the season set to begin on Sunday.

JR Payne, in her ninth year at the helm, believes the Buffs have the firepower to get back to the tournament once again coming off CU’s third straight 20-win season that featured three victories over Top 10 opponents.

“We have better depth than we’ve ever had, we’re longer than we’ve ever been, and we’re a very experienced group, even if that’s not experience here at Colorado,” Payne said. “… We have the same expectations we always have… and we’re very fortunate to have strong veteran leaders, even though there’s not a lot of them.”

Senior point guard Kindyll Wetta is set to assume the bulk of the point guard duties following the graduation of star Jaylyn Sherrod, who just won the WNBA title as a rookie with the New York Liberty. Wetta, a Valor Christian product, played every game the past three seasons.

The two other familiar veterans on CU’s roster are graduate sharpshooting guard Frida Formann (four-year starter) as well as fifth-year guard Sara-Rose Smith, who transferred last year from Missouri and came off the bench. Formann owns the school record for career 3-pointers with 260, and in 2023-24 also tied the program’s single-season mark for 3s with 82.

Beyond that, fans should probably have their rosters on their laps for the opener against Colorado School of Mines at 1 p.m. Sunday at the CU Events Center.

That roster turnover is largely why the Buffs were picked to finish ninth out of 16 teams in the Big 12 women’s basketball preseason poll. But Payne is much more optimistic.

“On paper, if you didn’t really do your research on who we signed in the spring and the freshmen we had coming in, I think I would’ve picked us ninth too,” Payne said. “But I know our team much better than most, and I definitely think we’ll finish much higher than ninth.”

The Buffs are tied for the second-most newcomers in the nation, according to CU athletics, and are the only NCAA Tournament team from last year with double-digit newcomers.

But despite losing starting center Aaronette Vonleh via transfer to Baylor, CU reloaded in the portal and features a true freshman capable of making an immediate impact in Tabitha Betson. The forward was tabbed as the Big 12 preseason freshman of the year.

Beyond Betson, an array of transfers are expected to contribute.

Forward Lior Garzon started every game last season for Oklahoma State, while forward Nyamer Diew started 19 games for Iowa State and forward Ayianna Johnson played in 31 games for Minnesota. Forward Jade Masogayo was a two-year starter at Missouri State. And guard Johanna Teder, a 3-point threat, was a three-year starter at Washington State before missing 2023-24 with an Achilles injury.

“It’s a different type of team, but we’re still Colorado basketball, and it’s still JR’s system and her mind behind it, and still (associate head coach Toriano Towns’) mind behind our defense,” Formann said. “It’s all the same principles, it’s just different personnel. It’s going to be a really fun look. We can really spread the floor with shooters, we can play super fast, and we’ll be able to play really good team basketball.”

With Formann as the headliner, CU’s roster has a decidedly worldly composition, with eight international players setting a program record.

Payne said that roster makeup is partly by design, with the Buffs’ coaching staff scouring tapes from abroad to find hidden gems in Europe, Australia and elsewhere, and partly by chance.

“For the system we run, it’s a stroke of luck we ended up with so many international players,” Payne said. “And it’s not so much international, but the experience (they come with) — people who have had a lot of different basketball experiences, whether that was overseas with their national teams or someone like Sara-Rose who won a bronze medal playing 3-on-3 with Team Australia.

“But some of these players we’ve also recruited before — like we’ve known Lior since high school, we’ve known (6-foot-5 Nigerian forward) JoJo Nworie since her freshman year at (Southern Idaho). So when those players went into the transfer portal, it made sense for us to try to get them.”

Now the question is who’s going to get the bulk of the playing time?

Wetta and Formann are obvious starters, although Formann had a boot on her right foot at Monday’s media day and said she is day-to-day with an undisclosed injury. Smith also figures to garner significant time.

Beyond that, Payne said she still doesn’t have a set starting lineup and that the Buffs will use their 12-game non-conference schedule, which includes matchups against Wyoming, Northern Colorado and Denver, to figure out the rotation. That means much of the roster will see minutes in the preseason.

“We’re very hopeful for this season, and we have very high expectations,” Wetta said. “The goal is to always meet that expectation, or surpass it, and we can definitely do that. But right now we’re focused on working out the kinks (in the lineup) and making sure we’re all on the same page in the first few games of the season. If we do that, we’ll be fine come time for Big 12 play and the postseason.”

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