DU men’s basketball played the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs (UCCS) at Hamilton Gym Tuesday night. Denver rode a torrid offensive first half, shooting 51.5% from the floor and 7-13 (54%) from three-point range to take a 49-35 halftime lead. The Mountain Lions clawed their way back into the game in the second half. In the final five minutes, DU’s lead was carved to four points but each time Denver responded with a run of their own. A three-point make by DeAndre Craig in the final minute-and-a-half finished off the scoring and the game ended 94-87 DU.
UCCS second half was spurred by foul trouble by DU’s thin front line with Pedro Lopez Sanvicente with four fouls and Josh Pickett with four fouls. Both Jon Mani and Ben Bowen both went down with ankle injuries, Mani’s injury appeared more serious, as a depleted Denver lineup played even smaller. Freshman Sebastian Akins, coming off a poor game against Portland State, scored 17 points going 7-13 from the field in an outstanding effort. As usual, DU’s tandem of freshman Nicholas Shogbonyo and sophomore DeAndre Craig did most of the damage with 24 and 17 points respectively. Isaiah-Addo Ankrah went 4-5 from long range in the winning effort. DU shot a sizzling 57% from the field in the second half but allowed a disappointing 64% from the Mountain Lions who canned 7-11 shots from downtown.
Denver’s kept turnovers to 9 while forcing 19 miscues. DU generated 32 points off those turnovers and that was the difference in the game.
Next up is a two-game California road swing. Denver plays Cal State Fullerton on Sunday and Cal Poly on Tuesday.
Announcer mentioned 2 kids on bench are red-shirting. We are getting short on bodies. Any chance either or both could help us? They can probably play 5-6 games and still maintain their red-shirt status.
The two redshirts (freshman forward Loch Cunningham and sophomore guard Keean Lloyd) don’t have the size to replace the injured players. DU is pretty much left with their current line-up – young and undersized. All that said, the coaches look to be coaching hard and the players are playing hard. They just need to work on their undersized line-up and defense.
You can’t allow a DII opponent to shoot 64% on your home floor. Ever.
I think there are two reasons. Two guards had 30+minutes and two othe players had +28 minutes. So fatigue played a factor. Foul trouble on our only two big men forced a zone which left DU vulnerable. It’s a tough spot but the have nonconference games to find some answers.
That was an ugly one, folks. I’m sure the DU coaches all aged about 5 years watching the second half of that game, as DU’s 20-point lead dwindled down to four while a UCCS DII team full of gangly, awkward-looking players just rained three-pointers down on a depleted Pios team in front of a listed crowd of 549 on DU’s home court (probably 200 people actually in the gym).
As I’ve said, these multiple DII games do nothing for DU but save money, and they are unfortunately a necessity when most D-I teams just don’t want to play DU in Denver for RPI reasons.
Yuck. At least DU didn’t lose.
If Carr is out for the season, is there a chance that he can apply/that he could receive a medical redshirt based on how early in the season that the injury happened?