Photo by: Andrew Fielding
The men’s basketball team lost both games on its road trip to Arkansas this past weekend.
DU dropped a nail-biter in overtime Thursday against Arkansas Little-Rock, 75-72, and then played a lackluster game in which the team scored a season low 35 points Saturday against Aransas State, 60-35.
The Pioneers fought back late earlier in the week and caused overtime when Chase Hallam sunk a three-pointer with a second remaining in regulation, completing DU’s comeback from down eight points.
In overtime, UALR made key free throws in the final second to go up by three and the Pioneers couldn’t hit another late shot.
Despite a good effort against the UALR, the Pioneers (11-12, 7-3 SBC) turned in their worst performance of the year against a Red Wolves team that they had previously beaten 74-36 in Magness Arena just three weeks ago.
With the two losses, Denver’s lead in the West Division of the Sun Belt Conference shrinks to a half game with a pivotal showdown against conference leader Florida Atlantic looming on Thursday night.
In addition to poor shooting from the field, the Pioneers were awful from three-point range, shooting a meek 3-17 (17.6 percent) aginst ASU.
Denver failed to have a starter finish with more than eight points, while freshman Chris Udofia led the team with 11 points and nine rebounds off the bench.
Chase and Travis Hallam were held to four and three points, respectively, following Thursday’s game in which they led the team in scoring.
“Arkansas State played extremely well,” head coach Joe Scott said. “You’ve got to give them credit. Things went very well for them all game, and things did not go well for us at all. We have to learn from this game tonight, and we have to make sure we remember this game.”
Earlier in the week, Denver blew a lead on the road, allowing UALR to go on a 18-1 run in the second half.
The difference proved to be turnovers as the Trojans scored 21 points off 15 Denver turnovers. UALR senior guard Matt Mouzy scored a game-high 24 points, shooting 8-for-10 from three-point range.
“Threes and turnovers – that was the game,” Scott said after the loss. “Give Little Rock credit for making those shots, but we need to stop them from shooting them. It’s disappointing because the game was there for us to win.”
In both losses, DU allowed their opponents to carry on runs of 18-1 and 18-0, respectively, which put them in a poor position late in the game.
Against the Red Wolves, the Pioneers scored only 13 first half points following an 18-0 run to close out the first half by ASU.
To make matters worse, the Pioneers shot 4 of 19 from the field in the opening half (21.1 percent), which allowed the Red Wolves to go up by as many as 38 points in the second half.
Donald Boone led ASU with 10 points and grabbed four rebounds, as the Red Wolves outrebounded the Pioneers 39-32.
Despite winning its first pair of conference road games, the Pioneers have struggled of late on the road, dropping their last three contests.
The key match-up against FAU (18-7, 10-1) will be played in Magness Arena, where Denver is undefeated this season in conference play. Currently, the Owls are atop the Sun Belt Conference’s East Division with a three game lead over Middle Tennessee.
