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After a 13-year run in the Pac-12, the CU Buffs are headed back to the Big 12 Conference. But this isn’t the same Big 12 fans may remember from the Buffs’ glory days of the 1990s and early 2000s. With 16 schools spanning three time zones, the new-look conference is a sprawling collection of holdovers, left-behinds and migrants that just 14 years ago were spread across four different conferences with one (BYU) independent.

The wide smiles, the roaring laughter, the animated high-fives. They greet every gaze of the eyes and turn of the neck at Aurora Sports Park. On a postcard-perfect Wednesday morning, 75 participants and 85 softball players attended a Field of Dreams event staged by the Beautiful Lives Project and Triple Crown Sports. They played catch, took batting practice, and shared stories. “I am enjoying this so much,” Marie Taylor of Denver said as she fired the ball across the outfield.

Almost by definition, a Rule 5 Draft pick is a reclamation project. The players selected on the final morning of Major League Baseball’s winter meetings usually come and go without much notice and without making much of an impact. On occasion, teams hit paydirt. The Rockies are optimistic they’ve done so with Anthony Molina, the 22-year-old right-hander they plucked from Tampa Bay last December.

The two biggest questions for next season remain unresolved, but the Colorado Avalanche did find some intriguing bargains despite limited financial resources at the start of a wild offseason. For the first time since before the COVID-19 pandemic, a lack of cap space was not the main storyline when free agency opened July 1 and NHL GMs turned back the clock for a proper spending spree.

Jordyn Poulter has seen the view from volleyball’s mountaintop. The ascent is anything but easy, even for someone who succeeded at every waypoint. In 2014, she was a blue chip setter out of Eaglecrest High School. Her decorated collegiate career included multiple All-American honors and a Final Four appearance with the University of Illinois. By the time she graduated, she not only secured a job in the top Italian professional league but also captured the attention of the U.

BOULDER — From 5,280 feet, it looks more like a crazy wall or a conspiracy board than a conference map. The new Big 12 is a mess of pins connected by string, hope and quiet desperation. One of the longest stretches 2,074 miles, from Morgantown, W. Va. to Tucson, Ariz., from sweetgum trees to saguaros, with a layover in Cincinnati and a detour in central Iowa. This ain’t your daddy’s Big 12. Here’s what the Buffs’ new league isn’t: The back-biting conference they fled in 2010.