Denver men’s basketball (13-11, 4-5) traveled to Tulsa, Oklahoma Saturday to play the Oral Roberts Golden Eagles. Denver surged back from an 18 point deficit, built a 10 point lead and fell in the final minutes to ORU.

Denver trailed 24-6 at 11:22 of the first half. It would have been easy to assume another road collapse but DU battled back. The deficit was narrowed to 10 points at half, 44-34.

Within three and a half minutes of the second half, DU knotted the score 46-46 on a Jaxson Brenchley lay-in. The early rout turned into a tight game. Denver went on their own scoring run and Brenchley, red hot in the second half, put Denver up by 10 points, 58-48, with fifteen minutes remaining. With 3:52 remaining, a Tommy Bruner layup gave Denver their last lead, 69-68. Deshang Weaver sunk a three-point shot for ORU to retake the lead and ORU never looked back down the stretch. Denver’s had nine turnovers in the second half and the Golden Eagles went to the line 19 times to claw back the lead. Isaac McBride paced the ORU charge with 34 points to lead the Golden Eagles to victory.

DU had another tough shooting night at 40.3% along with 16 turnovers, 9 of those in the second half. Bruner ended up with 22 points, 4 assists and 4 rebounds but was forced into 8 turnovers. Jaxson Brenchley had 20 points, leading DU’s second half comeback.

As discouraging as the first half was for the Pioneers fans, Denver never quit in a difficult road environment. The loss sent DU to their third consecutive loss. Denver has a single road-trip to South Dakota Thursday at 6:00 pm MT and returns to Hamilton Gym at 3:00 pm MT Saturday.