Sun Belt Sports Fans

Denver 79, Florida International 70 (OT)

DENVER — Playing in front of a large, loud Magness Arena crowd more typical of a DU hockey game, the Denver Pioneers continued their resurgence with a thrilling 79-70 overtime win Saturday over Florida International, extending their winning streak to seven games.  Sophomore Chase Hallam (22 points, ten of them in overtime, and 10 rebounds) and freshman Chris Udofia (21 points, 12 rebounds) led the way for DU.

“Two double-doubles at the University of Denver,” said Coach Joe Scott. “Doesn’t happen too often.”  Indeed, it’s the first time that’s happened since 2006.

Denver, which started the season 2-9, is now 9-9 overall and 5-0 in the Sun Belt, with a two-game lead in the conference’s West Division.

Florida International, meanwhile, leaves the Sun Belt’s western outpost wondering what might have been, if not for poor foul shooting and the absence of second-leading scorer DeJuan Wright.  “It’s disappointing,” FIU coach Isiah Thomas told the Associated Press. “The things we needed to do to win the basketball game, we were able to do, with the exception of making free throws. Any time you go 20 of 36 from the foul line, you’re not going to win games. That was the deciding factor.”

The Golden Panthers were swept on their three-day road trip to North Texas and Denver, falling to 8-9 overall and 3-2 in Sun Belt play after a 3-0 start.

Officially, Saturday’s game was witnessed by 6,244 fans at Denver’s 7,200-capacity arena, making it the fourth-largest home crowd ever to watch a DU men’s basketball game, and the largest of Joe Scott’s tenure as coach.  In reality, the true attendance total was almost certainly not quite that high – but it was still a very large crowd for a DU hoops game, and a loud and enthusiastic one at that, especially down the stretch.

“Great crowd today,” Scott said. “School’s back in session, you have the band here, you have the cheerleaders here, you have the dance team, you have a good crowd, and you have a 5-0 basketball team here at the University of Denver.”

Denver had its most offensively efficient game of the season, scoring 1.166 points per possession – and that despite 29.2% field-goal shooting in the second half, which allowed FIU to stay in the game. Remarkably, the Pioneers only trailed for 22 seconds all night, yet they nearly let the game slip away down the stretch in regulation.

Phil Gary, who led Florida International with 22 points, gave the Panthers their only lead, 59-58, on a layup with 4:03 left. After the under-4 television timeout, Denver’s Brian Stafford drew a foul and went to the line with 3:41 left for a 1-and-1. He appeared to miss the first shot, but was bailed out by an FIU lane violation. Given a second chance, he nailed two free throws to give DU a 60-59 lead.

Denver built that lead to 63-59, then 64-61, but a virtually uncontested layup by Gary cut it to 64-63 with 25 seconds left.  Denver then hit 1-of-2 at the free-throw line — something that happened three times in the game’s final minutes — and FIU got the ball back with 22 seconds to go. Eric Frederick, fed by Gary, hit the game-tying layup for FIU with 6 seconds left.

Denver had a chance to win the game in regulation, but Chase Hallam missed an open layup at the buzzer off a drive down the baseline.  The miss motivated Hallam in overtime, as he would later admit: “I thought I had the game-winner, and since I didn’t hit that, I had to make up for it.”  He did that in spades, scoring 10 of Denver’s 14 points in the extra period, as DU jumped out to a quick lead and ran away with it.

“I think our team kind of ran out of gas,” Thomas told the AP

If Hallam was the star of overtime for the Pioneers, Udofia was the star of the game.  The freshman, whose development has been striking in recent weeks, made a number of huge plays on both ends of the court, and earned fulsome praise from his coach afterward. “He’s something. He gave us a whale of a game,” Scott said. “We’ve got to keep him going, because obviously he’s a difference maker, and he was terrific today.”

Brendan Loy

DFN Sun Belt Basketball Contributing Writer

You can read more about this game, and the Denver Pioneers’ season, at Brendan’s personal blog about DU hoops, “Pioneer Pulse,” located at http://www.du.brendanloy.com/.