This summer will be a learning experience for the University of Northern Colorado men’s basketball team, and the lessons will extend beyond a seven-day trip to Portugal.
It’s time for the Bears to figure out who they’ll be in the 2025-26 season. There’s a lot for UNC to discover with eight new players and eight guys returning from last year’s team — one of the best in the school’s Division I era.
Summer workouts begin next week. UNC head coach Steve Smiley said he thinks the Bears have the pieces to again compete for Big Sky Conference titles. UNC (25-10) shared the conference regular-season title last year and reached the Big Sky tournament championship.
The 25 wins are the second most in a single season in Division I program history. The Bears played in the NIT for the first time after losing out on the automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament with a loss to Montana in the conference tournament final.
“I’m as curious as anyone else to see what it looks like,” said Smiley, starting his sixth year as head coach. “We need a couple of guys to be good because we lost production, and we need guys in house. There are a lot of questions.”
The team will spend a week in Portugal in early August for three games against European clubs. The trip will also benefit team chemistry.
