BOULDER — The 17-hour flight from Denver to Australia will be the longest just about every member of the Colorado men’s basketball team has ever made. Except for new assistant coach Nate Tomlinson.

For the Sydney native, it’s nothing new.

Back for his third stint with the Buffaloes program — first as a player from 2008-12 and second as a member of Tad Boyle’s staff from 2018-21 — the trip back to the east coast of his home country is one that Tomlinson has made plenty of times since originally coming to the United States nearly 20 years ago.

But it’s the first one for him and his family in two years.

“We’re super lucky,” Tomlinson told The Denver Gazette this week. “For me, from a personal level, getting back with my girls to see family is gonna be really, really cool. And then taking my team to Australia to meet coaches and play against the national team is gonna be amazing. I think it’ll do really good things for us recruiting-wise. It’s an area we really want to target.

“Just the whole experience is gonna be great and there’ll be some invaluable time spent with the group in a pretty cool place.”

College basketball programs are permitted to take an offseason international trip every four years and the Buffs have most recently gone to Costa Rica (2021) and Italy (2017). This year Boyle is trying to tap into a different market as he hopes to showcase his program to potential top Australian players that may be interested in coming to the U.S. to play college basketball.

The Buffs leave on Wednesday and will return on Aug. 5 after playing four games, one against the Australian national team on July 31 at the Gold Coast Sports & Leisure Center near the city of Brisbane, which is set to host the 2032 Summer Olympics.

Every member of the team will make the trip except Fawaz “Tacko” Ifaola, a freshman big man from Nigeria who has been on campus this summer for the 10 practices leading up to the trip. Additionally, junior big man Bangot Dak will not play in any of the games as he recovers from an offseason surgery.

One of the other games will come against the Sydney Kings, who Tomlinson’s father, Bill, is an assistant coach with.

“(All of the Australian teams) are well-coached, they’re really skilled, they’ve got good young players in the country,” Boyle said. “Having Nate Tomlinson on our staff is a huge advantage to us recruiting-wise. (It’s about) getting to know Australian basketball and the people that are in charge of it and run it and building those relationships that can hopefully pay off down the road in getting a kid — another Nate Tomlinson or Shane Harris-Tunks or whoever the guy may be. Recruiting is international now and Australia’s a great country to recruit from.”

If the Buffs are able to find the next Tomlinson, this trip will more than pay off in the coming years.

Not only is Tomlinson a valuable addition to a group of assistants that includes Mike Rohn, Bill Grier and Danny Manning — all former head coaches and longtime friends of Boyle’s — but Tomlinson might still be best known as the point guard and leader of the 2011-12 team that won the Pac-12 title and won a game in the NCAA Tournament.

“Nate’s a rising star in our business,” Boyle said. “He’s gonna be a great head coach someday. Hopefully someday soon. He’s got a good feel for the game, good feel for young men, he’s a good recruiter. He’s grown, he’s matured. He was always a mature player because he was so smart playing the point guard position and being the son of a coach. It’s been great having him back and getting his perspective.”

It’s hard to overstate just how different of a coach Tomlinson is since he last left in 2021 to go be a top assistant at George Mason for fellow former Buffs staffer Kim English.

The duo spent two years with the Patriots before going to Providence together for the past two years. Tomlinson was happy to remain working with English and the Friars — until a spot on Boyle’s staff opened back up following the departure of Zach Ruebesam, who left to become the head coach at CSU-Pueblo.

“Me and Kim are super close,” Tomlinson said. “That’s one of my best friends, so that was hard. Honestly, I wouldn’t have left for any other place in the world if it wasn’t here. The Big East is a great league, Providence is a special place, a special school that really commits to their basketball program so I was fortunate enough to learn a lot holistically of how a high-level college basketball program should be run, and I’ll hopefully bring those things back here to Colorado.”

He hopes to start by finding the next star from his home country and bringing them to Boulder.

“We’ve had some really good Australians come though here,” Tomlinson said. “(First-round NBA draft pick) Josh Giddey was gonna come here before he decided to do the NBL thing. We always want to recruit the best players from (Australia) and we’ll be in those conversations now.”

That and having the chance to raise his three daughters with his wife Rebecah, a former CU volleyball player, back in the area was enough to sway their family. Oh, and there’s that drive into work everyday, too.

“Whenever you drive into the Flatirons (and) you get on campus, it’s always like — is this place real?” Tomlinson said. “Where I was family-wise — my wife went to school here and I went to school here — this is home. We were here for three years with two daughters that we raised here and we love that family aspect of it.

“I think the way the sport is going as far as revenue sharing, transfer portal, for me, getting back to a place that really means something to me was the angle I wanted to take.”