First-Year Buff is Battle-Tested in the NCAA Tournament

BOULDER—As No. 17 Colorado prepares for its Sweet 16 rematch against No. 1-seeded and second-ranked Iowa on Saturday (1:30 p.m. MT/ABC), there is one Buffalo who can point to the bracket and say, 'I've done that.'
 
Jaylyn Sherrod, Quay Miller, Frida Formann, and every returning CU player from last season's squad remember the heartache of walking off the court at Climate Pledge Arena after the Buffs' season ended at the hands of the same Hawkeyes.
 
But it's the player that was sitting on the couch at home watching the game on TV that has the most NCAA Tournament experience for the Buffs this season. 
 
Colorado graduate guard Maddie Nolan is set to play in her 12th NCAA Tournament game on Saturday. This weekend will be Nolan's third Sweet 16 bid, and she helped the Wolverines to an Elite Eight appearance – a step further than any other Buff – in the 2022 tournament. She's 8-3 all-time in the Big Dance and knows what it takes to get the job done late in March.
 
"It was crazy; I remember in the first round, my dad texted me, 'Welcome to game No. 10 in your NCAA Tournament career.' I was like, 'Have I really played in that many games?'" Nolan recalled. "I think when you play in that many games, you're going to have this calmness and confidence that you've been here before, and you know what it takes to get to the next round. I just tried to bring that to my teammates."
 
Nolan knew the moment the Buffs lost last season that Boulder was a place where she could see herself playing her final season of college basketball.
 
"I think that was part of why I did choose to come here, watching them [Colorado] in the Sweet 16 and then with my experience having gone to a Sweet 16 and an Elite Eight," Nolan said back in November. "I knew they would have that hunger even on my visit and talking to them about wanting to take it a step further and bring a Pac-12 championship here and get to the Final Four."
 
A two-year starter at Michigan, Nolan totaled 764 points as a Wolverine and left the program ranked seventh all-time with 167 career 3-point field goals. Nolan was an honorable mention All-Big Ten selection as a junior and averaged career-highs in points (9.1), assists (2.0) and minutes (32.7) in her final season in Ann Arbor.
 
Nolan's final game as a Wolverine was on March 19, 2023, at LSU in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. A little more than a month later, she was a Buff.
 
"I knew from the first time we spoke that Maddie was everything we were looking for," head coach JR Payne said last April. "She is tough, hard-working, and a great teammate, and she wants to help us compete [for championships]."
 
Nolan's first game as a Buff just happened to be against the same LSU Tigers. Although she didn't find the basket against the Tigers in Las Vegas, it was clear that Nolan would be a pivotal piece to the puzzle for Payne and the Buffs.
 
Two days after the Buffs' upset of LSU, the team returned to the CU Events Center against Le Moyne, and Nolan scored 15 points in 15 minutes.
 
Adjusting to her new role off the bench, she averaged 5.3 points and 17.0 minutes in CU's first 10 games.
 
"I try to be whatever the team needs me to be that night," Nolan said in a February interview with the Associated Press. "Just have fun, play with joy — be a consistent source of positive energy."
 
Nolan got her first starting nod in a late December matchup with Northern Colorado and has been a constant in the starting five ever since. She recorded a Colorado-high 20 points in CU's 80-57 win over Washington and has averaged 7.1 points and made 40 3-pointers across her 21 starts this season.
 
Now, with two tournament games under her belt as a Buff, it seems that maybe she saved her best play when it counts most. Nolan is one of four Colorado players who averaged double figures (11.5) last weekend in Manhattan, Kan., where she led the team in scoring against K-State with 11 points. So far this tournament, she has paced the Buffs from beyond the arc with five triples and drained 21 3-pointers in her 11-game tournament career.
 
"I think she's doing a great job of bringing energy and bringing a sense of calm," Payne noted on Tuesday. "Maddie is one that plays with a tremendous amount of passion, but she's also very calm in the midst of the storm. I think that experience that she has, going to the Elite Eight, is something that we can all lean on and she'll continue to give that to everybody."
 
Even as game 12 approaches, it doesn't seem old hat for Nolan.
 
"It's a huge deal and a great honor to even be in the tournament and obviously even make the Sweet 16," Nolan expressed. "I have experience in the tournament. Obviously, Colorado made the Sweet 16 last year, so they have experience. It's kind of been a thing we've talked about all year. We're going to keep focusing on us and we're going to control what we can control."