David Carle has completed his incoming freshman class – and still no official word as to whether Ian Mitchell will be departing before his senior season, though it is still all but a given that he will sign with the Chicago Blackhawks. The incoming class includes two 2019 NHL Draftees in D Antti Tuomisto, Assat U20 (Finland) 2nd round pick (35th overall) of the Detroit Red Wings and F McKade Webster, Green Bay Gamblers (USHL) 7th round draft pick (213 overall) of the Tampa Bay Lightning. The remaining three members are F Connor Caponi, Waterloo Black Hawks (USHL) from Brookfield, Wisconsin, D Reid Irwin, Sherwood Park Crusaders (AJHL), from Victoria, B.C, and D Josh Luedtke, Des Moines Buccaneers (USHL) from Minnetonka, MN. We will have more on this incoming class later this year in our annual season preview.
The past weekend was bookended by a premier lacrosse showdown between #8 DU and #11 Duke at a sold-out Peter Barton Stadium and #5 Denver Gymnastics performing in front of 5,500 fans in Magness Arena. If athletics are ‘the front porch’ of a university, Denver was just a few heads short of a visit from the fire marshall. Continue reading Roller Coaster Weekend for DU Athletics and Fans→
DU women’s basketball (11-14, 5-7 Summit League) shocked the South Dakota State University Jackrabbits on the road Thursday night in Brookings, S.D., 72-62. The Pioneers had not defeated the Jackrabbits in five years of conference play. The road win was directed by Associate Head Coach Kayla Ard.
It’s no secret the DU athletic department is hitting on all cylinders. Nearly every Pioneer sport is excelling except for hoops, both men’s and women’s these days. DU gets great bang for its buck as the top non-football Division I athletic department in America for 11 of the last 12 years, but what is even realistic for a school like DU? Is the chase for relevance in hoops even worth it when the sport can only be currently funded to be competitive in a mid-major conference like the Summit League?
Denver Senior Samantha Romanowski finished her DU career in the 88-66 WNIT loss to Idaho. Photo: DU Athletics
The 2018-2019 University of Denver Women’s Basketball season is over, as the Pioneers were curb-stomped in the second round of the WNIT, 88-66 by the University of Idaho Vandals before a boisterous crowd filling the historic, old Memorial Gym in Moscow, Idaho on March 24th.
They’ve made it there three times before – the postseason that is. But this year, an unlikely Pioneer squad went on the road in the NIT to Albuquerque and defeated an excellent New Mexico Squad, 83-75, for their first tournament win.
Denver women’s basketball was a mess when Jim Turgeon took the reins of the floundering program two years ago. He brought in coaches Kayla Ard, Terry Moyers and Tommy Johnson and they turned around the program’s fortunes in only two seasons, going from 6-24 to 18-13 this season, and hanging in nearly every game. Continue reading DU Women’s Hoops Defeat New Mexico 83-75, Earn first NCAA D1 Postseason Win→
Denver’s upset of top-five Stony Brook was a milestone in the Pioneers’ program development. Photo: Marc Piscotty
While men’s hockey and lacrosse take up the lion’s share of fan interest for most Pioneer fans, it’s important to recognize some otherDU athletic teams who continue to climb higher into national prominence and greater conference impact:
The 13th-ranked DU women’s lacrosse team beat its very first top five opponent since coach Liza Kelly took the helm in 2006, upsetting (#6/#4) Stony Brook (N.Y.) University, 11-7, behind Bea Behrins’ three-goal hat trick. This was a statement win for the program. The Pios have been a top-20 program for a while now, but have had trouble beating the very top echelon teams. Sunday’s win over SBU kept DU undefeated at 4-0 and may see the Pioneers knocking on the door of a top-10 ranking. The Michigan Wolverines come to town this Tuesday to face the surging Pioneers for a 12 noon start.
The sixth-ranked DU women’s gymnastics team scored its second highest all-time score (and the highest score of this season) with a 197.725 on Sunday afternoon before over 4,000 fans at Magness Arena, to win the meet over Iowa State and Boise State. This kind of scoring should keep DU in the hunt for a top-five national ranking as the season moves into the stretch run.
The DU men’s (#24th nationally) and (#47) women’s swim teams once again won the Summit League title for the sixth year in a row. DU was so dominant at the Summit League Championships that the DU women set an all-time league record for points, and DU mens and women swimmers won 37 of 38 of the swimming events overall. That’s an incredible achievement – perhaps the swimming equivalent of winning the Summit League basketball title game by 30 points, and repeating the winning margin for six straight years.
DU women’s basketball (15-12, 8-6 Summit league) continued its rise into a winning program with a dramatic road win at North Dakota. Often-injured senior Pioneer Haley Simental hit the long-range three point shot-of-her-college-career to send the game into overtime at the buzzer, in a game that the Pios would later win, 92-91. With the OT win, the Pios’ have earned at least a top-five seed at the Summit League tournament next month.
The DU women’s tennis team, ranked #40 nationally, are 7-2 this year in a sport where 317 teams compete nationally. DU has already defeated brand name schools such as Oregon, Wisconsin, BYU and Colorado this season.
All of these teams deserve our support, and we look forward to seeing how they compete in the coming months.
DU Junior Lauren Loven led the entire nation in three-pointers as of Nov. 30, 2018 Photo: University of Denver
As Denver Pioneer fans, we’re lucky that we can pop our attention from one successful DU sports program to another. All three fall DU sports (men’s and women’s soccer plus women’s volleyball) earned appearances in their respective NCAA Tournaments this fall. And DU hockey is now ranked seventh in the nation on this bye week, more successful than almost anyone thought they’d be at this point in the season with a young team. Which brings me to the next DU team worthy of more of our attention, the DU women’s basketball team, who have shot out to a 6-1 start to the season and a current national top 40 RPI (#39) ranking, including a current four-game winning streak, as of Sunday, Dec. 2. (Note: Early season RPI rankings are subject to volatile swings, as game data comparisons are still somewhat paltry.)
I would venture a guess that perhaps only 10 percent of our readership here at LetsGoDU have ever been to a live DU women’s basketball game before, and it’s hard to blame them. There is a lot to do in Denver, and the DU women’s basketball teams have been pretty terrible in recent memory, known more for single-digit win/last-place seasons, a fired coach and crowds comprised mostly of friends and family members. Apart from a surprise 2001 NCAA appearance in the early years of the Ritchie Center and a period of decent mediocrity (72-52) under former coach Erik Johnson from 2008-2012, there hasn’t been a lot to cheer about with DU women’s hoops in the last 20 years.
But this year’s DU women’s team is starting to change some of that…
The Pioneers are starting to get noticed in just the second year of the Jim Turgeon coaching era, with home wins over then-#16 RPI Lamar and the latest win, a 29-point win over Loyola Marymount, a top 100 team who had already beaten UCLA and Arizona this year.Moreover, the Pioneers are a very high-scoring bunch, averaging a stunning 90 points per game to date this season, and sport a victory margin of 16 points per game.
And Turgeon, who came to DU from CSU-Pueblo in NCAA Division II two years ago, is doing all this with many of former DU coach Kerry Cremeans’ recruits, who knew only college basketball failure before Turgeon’s arrival. Moreover, he’s done it with a wholly different philosophy of team speed, running the floor at altitude and sharing the ball, instead of Cremeans’ over-reliance on feeding key players, a coaching practice that reportedly lost the locker room and brought an end to her losing tenure at DU. This year, DU has five players averaging double-digit scoring per game, a depth which makes it harder for opponents to key on any one player, and also makes for a much happier DU locker room.
DU’s high scoring attack has been led by Lauren Loven, a junior holdover recruit from Cremeans, who is now flourishing in the ball-sharing Turgeon era, leading the entire nation in made three-pointers (30 in six games through Nov. 30), and is averaging 21 points per game overall to lead the Pioneers in scoring. Additionally, fellow Junior Madison Nelson has exploded recently, with a 20-rebound performance against Lamar and pumping in 28 points in the win over Loyola Marymount. But it’s not just upperclassmen.
Hard-working associate head coach and recruiting coordinator Kayla Ard and the rest of Turgeon’s Denver staff have also brought in some freshmen who are stepping up right away, including Sydney Mech, a local swing player out of Cherry Creek High School who can play either forward or guard, and who is shooting a scorching 50% from the field, averaging 10 points per game. Additionally, talented freshman guard Tsimba Malonga from the Chicago area, who has averaged over 20 minutes per game in the last two games, is being rewarded with more playing time as her contributions increase.
While the 6-1 early record is outstanding, it has been created with a lot of home games, and we’ll soon see what the Pioneers are really made of in the coming weeks. DU is preparing to go on the road for seven of its next eight games, including visits to Wyoming, the University of Nebraska and Colorado State, before heading into the teeth of Summit League play, where top level programs South Dakota and South Dakota State are projected to lead the Summit League.
The Mountain West Conference is looking to shake things up again and Gonzaga is their prime target to upgrade its conference basketball fortunes. Usually, these things are handled in private, but both parties, Gonzaga and the Mountain West Commissioner, have expressed a public interest. And, the change could happen as soon as next season. The story was broken earlier this week by The San Diego Union-Tribune.
Photo: DU Women’s Lacrosse defeated San Diego State University 17-12 on a chilly Friday afternoon game at Peter Barton Lacrosse Stadium.
One team’s season is winding down and the other team’s season has just begun.
DU Women’s basketball is 16-13 (7-7 Summit League) and having a solid season following 8-23, 5-25 and 6-24 seasons under former head coach Kerry Cremeans who posted a 24-112 overall record in her five seasons at DU. Head Coach Jim Turgeon has guided the team above .500 in just one season. According to one parent, Coach Turgeon employs a system that involves all the players instead of funneling the ball to the same one or two stars. The result is an impressive winning season in Turgeon’s first season. Continue reading Women’s Basketball & Lacrosse thrive in Relative Anonymity→
