FORT COLLINS — As he hit the court this month for the start of summer workouts, Rashaan Mbemba saw a lot of new faces and had more names to learn.

It’s business as usual for the rising junior big man from Austria.

This time last year, after a solid freshman season at Colorado State, he and the few remaining Rams teammates welcomed 10 new players into the fold. This summer, it’s nine newcomers.

Oh, and there’s a new guy running practice. It’s a familiar face and he’s still as energetic as he was as an assistant, but everyone is now looking at Ali Farokhmanesh to run the show after Niko Medved’s unsurprising departure back to his home state of Minnesota after a successful, seven-year run in Fort Collins.

Of the nine newcomers, there are six transfers that combined to give the Rams the strongest group in the Mountain West this offseason.

Three are from high-major programs — Carey Booth from Illinois, Jase Butler from Washington and Brandon Rechsteiner from Virginia Tech. There are productive mid-major players looking for a new challenge in a bigger conference — Josh Pascarelli from Marist, Augustinas Kiudulas from Virginia Military Institute and Jevin Muniz from Florida Gulf Coast.

There’s a freshman point guard from Texas in Jojo McIver who already has people thinking about the last Texan point guard who made his way to Fort Collins: Isaiah Stevens.

Then there are the five returning players, two of whom redshirted last season in Darnez Slater and Jon Mekonnen, and a trio of big men (Mbemba, Kyle Jorgensen and Nikola Djapa) who had varying roles in 2024-24.

Only Mbemba was a regular starter, and he never really thought twice about leaving.

“I’ve got a long way to get home (to Austria) and I don’t like change,” Mbemba said. “For me, when the decision came to stay or transfer, I know my people here. I know the coaching staff. I love the community, I really do, and I really for myself got really comfortable here, even despite not being at home with my family. It was almost like a no-brainer to stay.”

This new group of Rams is still getting to know each other on and off the court, but there’s a common starting point: they all want to get CSU back to the NCAA Tournament.

“They’re competitive,” Farokhmanesh said this week. “We have more size, more athleticism, you just don’t have Nique Clifford, but that’s the nature of this. That’s kind of how we’ve always been. David Roddy was here then we went to Isaiah (Stevens) then we went to Nique. We’ve always moved on to the next group, and I think that’s the best part of what we’ve built is that sustainability of who’s next up.

“I don’t know if there’s necessarily a Nique out there or a David Roddy, but we’re two weeks into it and I like the way they’re competing.”

Early on, there doesn’t figure to be a superstar on this year’s Rams team — but that’s OK. Farokhmanesh and his coaching staff were deliberate in the type of players they recruited from the transfer portal, adding size, athleticism, versatility and players with multiple years of eligibility left. Muniz is the only senior on the roster.

There figures to be a dozen players that could contribute at some point this season, and the amount of different lineup combinations they can utilize is exciting to the coaching staff. But none of it matters if the group doesn’t get along.

While the newcomers are getting acclimated to the fast-paced, motion-heavy offense that the Rams have been running for years, the group as a whole is taking a crash course in each other so that by the time the season rolls around in November, they’ve already built a bond that can carry them deep into next March.

“The key is to get as connected as you can get, not only on the basketball court but also outside the basketball court,” Mbemba said. “We’ll be seeing each other every day for at least five to six hours when it comes to practice, film, weights, lifts, training, etc., but I think it’s way more important to meet outside of basketball, just to get to know what (your teammates) like.

“I think that was the big key for our success last year. We just bonded very good as a group.”