Inside the Decision on Replacing Tyler Bey

Nate Tomlinson takes us inside the CU hoops personnel discussions on how they were going to replace Tyler Bey and the other two departures.

Tad Boyle and his coaching staff had some intriguing personnel decisions to make over the past month.

Sophomore Daylen Kountz and redshirt freshman Jakub Dombek entered the transfer portal. While juniors Tyler Bey and McKinley Wright declared for the NBA Draft.

So the coaching staff knew they had to replace at least two players but the other ones were question marks.

“Well it was kind of a fluid situation with Tyler Bey, obviously, not sure of what he was going to do,” Nate Tomlinson said. “It looks like he has made up his mind to leave and go to the NBA. Again, nothing is set in stone. But if that is to happen obviously we had to replace, not that you can replace a Tyler Bey with another Tyler Bey--there’s not too many of those.”

Tomlinson, as the Director of Player Development, stayed in constant contact with Bey and Wright to figure out if they were going to have to replace them.

“I guess that's a little bit of what my role is,” Tomlinson said. “Just to have that relationship with the guys where we trust one another. And trust that you know what I'm saying to Tyler is truthful, what he's saying back to me is truthful. And we've gone through this thing for two or three months like really talking about it.”

Tomlinson says they discuss everything and every different scenario.

“Collecting actual data and actual facts, draft facts and what you know to be the best thing for him, hiring an agent not hiring an agent,” Tomlinson said. “All those things to make sure that he makes the best calculated correct decision. No one knows 100% what pick he is going to be no matter what anybody tells you.”

It is all about figuring out how to make the best decision for everybody so nobody is caught blindsided.

“So just making the best decision for him,” Tomlinson said. “And then and also the best decision for us, we don't want to get caught with our pants down. So just like open dialogue back and forth.”

In terms of trying to replace Bey, the staff knew it was not going to be easy. They went with the Moneyball approach. When the Athletics lost Jason Giambi to the Yankees, the Athletics knew they couldn’t replace his productivity with one guy so they did it with multiple guys that could combine to match his productivity.

The Buffaloes signed three 6-foot-8 forwards last Wednesday, all guys that could potentially replace Bey as a collective.

“You just got to figure out what potentially is out there,” Tomlinson said. “As far as transfers, high school kids, what we have on our current roster. What is out there that we can combine to produce the numbers of Tyler Bey even though we don't think there was another Tyler Bey out there. So we did the best we could to fill some voids. We will look a little different but I think we will be just as effective.”

The short term replacement for Bey is going to be Tulsa graduate transfer Jeriah Horne. Horne is a different type of player. Not the elite defender that Bey was but maybe more polished offensively.

“Jeriah is obviously a proven scorer, a proven shooter at every level he’s been at,” Tomlinson said. “And for us would be potentially someone that could come in and fill a veteran role in the veteran space that Tyler is obviously leaving behind--who would have been a senior--so we were thinking about looking to get potentially an older player in that spot.”

Tomlinson believes Horne will be able to space the floor and accentuate Evan Battey’s presence down low.

Now the Buffs have a creative point guard, a dominant presence on the block and shooters all around them. They filled the rotation spots with athletic defenders and that’s what Boyle and his staff believe will be the perfect recipe for next season.