Record home crowd watches Denver improve to 5-0 in Sun Belt, .500 overall

Last month, desperate for any spark amid a dismal 2-8 start, Denver coach Joe Scott tried to light a fire under sophomore forward Chase Hallam by referring to the Pioneers as “Chase’s team.” On Saturday, in front of the largest home crowd to watch a DU game during Scott’s four-year tenure, Hallam had an chance to dramatically seal Denver’s seventh straight win with a buzzer-beating layup. “I don’t think you can get a better shot” than the one Hallam had, Scott would say later. “We had a wide-open drive there.”

The shot missed.

Instead of a wild celebration at the end of regulation, the game went to overtime, all tied at 65-65. And Hallam resolved not to squander another opportunity.

“I thought I had the game-winner, and since I didn’t hit that, I had to make up for it,” he said of his 10 points in overtime — the bulk of the team’s 14 total in the extra period, and nearly half of his 22 points in the game.

Led by its two players with double-doubles on the night, Hallam (22 points, 10 rebounds) and freshman Chris Udofia (21 points, 12 rebounds), Denver outscored Florida International 14-5 in overtime — Udofia had the 4 Pioneer points in OT not scored by Hallam — to beat FIU, 79-70.

“Two double-doubles at the University of Denver,” said Scott. “Doesn’t happen too often.” Indeed, Hallam and Udofia are the first pair of Denver players to get double-doubles in the same game since Yemi Nicholson and DaShawn Walker did it against Troy in 2006, according to the DU SID.

The win boosted the Pioneers to 5-0 in the Sun Belt and 9-9 overall, with a seven-game winning streak since starting the season 2-9. Moreover, thanks to a North Texas loss Saturday to Troy, Denver now leads the Sun Belt West Division by two games. That is to say, every other team in the division has at least two losses, while DU remains undefeated.

The victory follows on the heels of Denver’s first road sweep since 2003, when the Pioneers won at Western Kentucky at Louisiana-Monroe last weekend, and Scott was quick to point that out. “We won two on the road, and today we did what we had to do to make those two road wins really, really important. When you win, and you win road games, the games get bigger, and this was a big game today, and we held serve on our home court.”

Florida International, playing without second-leading scorer DeJuan Wright, fell to 3-2 in the Sun Belt after a 3-0 start. The Golden Panthers, who are something of a “celebrity” team in the Sun Belt because of their head coach, former Detroit Pistons star Isiah Thomas, whiffed on a tough two-game, three-day road trip to North Texas and Denver. FIU is 8-9 overall.

Whether because of Thomas, or good promotion by the university, or the team’s hot conference start, or some combination thereof, the crowd was almost hockey-like for the Pioneers, who never come close to filling the 7,200-seat Magness Arena.

Announced attendance was 6,244, officially the fourth-largest crowd ever to watch a men’s basketball game at Magness Arena and the largest since January 2006. The true number in attendance was almost certainly not quite that high, but it was definitely a very large crowd for a DU hoops game — and a loud and enthusiastic crowd, too, especially down the stretch.

It was the first home game since the end of the long interterm break that stretches from before Thanksgiving until after New Year’s, and the students’ presence was obvious, from the full band, cheerleaders and dance team to the spandex guys:

“Great crowd today,” said Scott. “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.”

Udofia said the crowd “definitely motivated all of us. … The support and fan base just keeps growing every game. We like it.”

The crowd witnessed an exciting game, even if some statistics belie that fact. The Pioneers only trailed for 22 seconds the entire contest, leading Denver Post reporter Irv Moss to ask if that statistic “makes it sound easy.” Replied Hallam: “Oh man, it was definitely not an easy game. [FIU] played real well. They played hard on defense and their offense executed really well.” Indeed, it was an offensively efficient game on both ends, with Denver scoring a season-high 1.166 points per possession, while the Panthers scored 1.074 PPP.

For a while, it looked like Denver might win fairly easily, as the Pioneers led by as many as 8 points in the first half. But FIU pulled within 5 at halftime — it would have been 3 if not for a rare transition basked by the Pioneers at the buzzer, courtesy of a long pass to Chris Udofia (see above) — and then took advantage of Denver’s second-half shooting woes, an all-too-familiar pattern for the Pioneers. DU shot 52% in the first half, but just 29.2% in the second half.

“The ball didn’t go in the basket, but we took care of the ball,” said Coach Scott, noting Denver’s 4 second-half turnovers and 10 overall. “If the ball had gone in the basket in the second half, we would have won in regulation. … Overall, we played really well, but the Basketball Gods were saying the ball’s not going in. … Give [FIU] credit for taking advantage of us not shooting well.” Indeed, the Panthers shot a torrid 59.1% in the second half, allowing them to stay in the game and ultimately send it to overtime.

FIU’s brief stint in the lead, all 22 seconds of it, bookended the game’s last TV timeout. The Panthers went up 59-58 on a layup by Phil Gary with 4:03 left. After the stoppage, 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 a Panther lane violation — a critical play in the game, as it turned out. Given a second chance, Stafford nailed two free throws to give DU a 60-59 lead.

After a quick FIU miss on the other hand, Chris Udofia drew a foul and hit 1 of 2 free throws for a 61-59 lead. After Udofia blocked a Panthers shot with 2:49 left, it looked like perhaps Denver would start to put the game away — but the teams traded missed shots and turnovers for the next two minutes until, with 38 seconds to go, a Travis Hallam layup gave the Pioneers a 63-59 lead. The crowd came alive on that possession as it rarely does for a basketball game at Magness Arena, and was veritably electric down the stretch and into overtime.

After some foul shots by both teams, it was 64-61 Denver with 32 seconds left. Gary made a virtually uncontested layup for FIU to cut DU’s lead to 64-63, and Denver called timeout, leading me to tweet, “Dramatic & exciting ending in front of a big, enthusiastic crowd. Denver up 1, 25.2 left. College basketball!!”

After another 1-for-2 at the free-throw line — something that happened three times in the game’s waning moments for Denver — FIU got the ball back with 22 seconds to go. Another relatively easy layup for FIU, this one by Eric Frederick, tied the game at 65-65.

Denver’s defense in that final minute of regulation was Scott’s chief complaint after the game. “At the end of the game, we went away from our defense a little bit. We didn’t execute.” Still, the Pioneers had a chance to win it, either at the free-throw line — those three late misses looming large — or with Hallam’s potential buzzer-beater. Instead, those chances failed, and the game went to overtime.

In OT, the Pioneers simply dominated, jumping out to a 69-65 lead, then scoring 10 unanswered points after Phil Gary’s three-pointer cut it to 69-68 with 3:29 left. Denver led 79-68 and won 79-70.

“Our team showed a tone of poise,” said Brian Stafford, who scored 15 points. “In the last four games, we’ve had two overtime wins, and two [close games] down the stretch. So we’ve showed a really good amount of poise, where teams come back at us, and we’re just coming together and keeping our heads and finishing the games to get those wins.”

Scott, who never outwardly panicked during the team’s 2-9 start, seemed to caution Saturday against overexubrance amid the winning streak. “Nothing’s ever as bad as it seems, and now, nothing’s ever as good as it seems,” he said. The key, he said, is that Hallam brothers are now playing consistently, Chris Udofia and Andrew Hooper — who sub in and out — have both become reliable forces down low, Stafford is improving, “and then our role players have figured out their roles. And now you’ve got a team that knows who they are and is playing like they know who they are.”

Chase Hallam, channeling his coach, said, “We’re at seven in a row, and it’s all because we have five guys contributing each night. It’s not just one or two guys now. We have five guys contributing each night, and that’s what’s paying off for us.”

Up next is a home date with Arkansas State on Thursday. Scott called it a “huge game for us,” noting, “When you’re successful, the games get bigger. … I know we’ll be ready to go.”