The impact of David Gomez's grueling path to Colorado's frontcourt
With just under two weeks until the start of the regular season for the Colorado Buffaloes, junior forward David Gomez is ready for the next chapter of his college basketball career.
Gomez grew up in Sevilla, Spain, and was originally a product of the Spanish Youth National team. He played a role for the team in its 2023 FIBA World Cup Championship. After transferring from Spain, he spent last season with the Charlotte 49ers, before an injury two games into the year cut his season short.
Gomez now enters his junior season with the Buffs fresh off a foot injury, looking to establish himself as a force to be reckoned with at the collegiate level.
“I want to prove that I’m able to play after one year being out, that I can be tough, help the team and improve everyone else here,” Gomez said.
His decision to transfer from Charlotte to Boulder this season was summed up by him as a desire to compete.
“At the end of the day, I’m a competitive person. I love to compete. I think this provides a better challenge for me as a player,” said Gomez when asked about his decision.
The Big 12 is one of, if not the most physical and fast-paced conferences in college basketball and a large step up in intensity from the American Conference where Charlotte plays. Gomez has been gearing up for this jump in physicality all summer through rehab, although his training program has been separate from the rest of the team.
“I got a different summer than they did, but it was also really hard. I was doing a lot of the ankle bike—never resting,” Gomez said. “I’m feeling great now.”
After suffering the same foot injury for a third time, Gomez finally decided to have surgery done on it last year.
The 6-foot-9 inch big man has spent the majority of his career playing as a power forward, but talked about the adjustment of playing more center so far in preseason this year.
“I used to play more outside as a four, but right now since I came back, I’m playing more low as a five. Obviously I can play both, but I have to commit more as a five.” Gomez said. “I think that’s going to help me as a player as well. And for sure will help the team.”
When Gomez committed to Colorado in the spring of this year, Buffs head coach Tad Boyle talked about him as an under-the-radar player with strong physical tools.
“He can play and guard both the four and five spot, so his versatility in the front court is going to help us,” Boyle told CU Athletics.
He’ll continue to settle into his new role for Colorado as the season progresses, especially as he gets back to full strength.
The college basketball environment has been a much different experience from Gomez’s native Spain so far.
“It’s nothing like it; they’re two separate things. The level—nothing like it,” Gomez said..
He praised the unity of his U19 world champion team, describing them as ‘one’.
“That team was so united, we were one player as a team. Everybody trusts everybody.”
The Buffs have players from a multitude of global backgrounds this season, but Gomez says he sees shades of that unity and togetherness from his Spanish team in this year’s group.
“Yeah, I definitely see some of that with us,” Gomez said. “We have a lot of different players—we have Australians coming here for the first time, we’ve got Russian kids, we’ve got some coming out of high school. Since my first day here, I knew we had a great team.”
Gomez scored two points and grabbed two rebounds in limited minutes in the Buffaloes’ exhibition win against the North Texas Mean Green on Oct. 18. Following the game, Boyle pointed to Gomez’s conditioning as something he’s still working on.
“He was exhausted there in the first half; he was fouled and traveled. He was just physically exhausted, but again—he’s catching up from not practicing all summer.”
Gomez and the Buffs are now in their final stretch of preparation before the regular season tips off on Nov. 2.
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