Photo by: Andrew Fielding
The 2010-2011 season was full of ups and downs for the DU men’s basketball team as they won nine of 10 games from mid-December to January and ascended to 1st place in their division only to lose 53-49 to No. 6-seeded Florida International in the first round of the Sun Belt Conference Tournament.
While injuries and inexperience took their toll on the team down the stretch, head coach Joe Scott was able to hone in on what really went wrong this offseason and make the appropriate changes heading into the 2011-2012 campaign, which has the Pioneers returning 83 percent of their scoring along with five seniors.
“What happened last year is that we had to replace a two-time first team all-league player in Nate Rohnert, and we underestimated how long it was going to take to replace him. At the same time, we overestimated the manner in which we were going to replace him,” said Scott. “We had a few key injuries that threw another monkey wrench in there, but I learned from all of that you never know how you’re going to replace somebody [like Nate] until you go out there with your team and see how they gel together and make sure what you’re doing as a coach is good for those guys.
“We’ve made some changes off of what we’ve learned from last season; we’re going to be playing a little differently, playing faster, and that means we’ve tweaked the offense to extenuate the players that we have.”
The most notable change comes at the point guard position, where Scott will start freshman Brett Olson in hopes that the newcomer will take the ball-handling pressure off the team’s leading scorers from last season: senior captain Brian Stafford and junior Chase Hallam.
Stafford averaged a team-high 12.9 points per game last season and brings 93 career starts in 93 games played. Hallam averaged 12.5 points per game last season and brings 62 career starts in 62 games played.
“Chase and I had to handle a lot of pressure last season,” said Stafford, a Preseason All-SBC Third Team selection. “Brett is going to handle a lot of that pressure and hopefully take over that position. Chase and I have the ability to score a lot and will be able to score more this season without that additional pressure.”
Last season, Stafford, along with Chase and his older brother Travis, took over running the team’s offense at point guard, which is not his natural position.
In addition, neither Hallam brother is a natural point guard, which created a stagnant offensive play and led to the Pioneers averaging only 60 points a game, ranking them 331st in the nation in points per game.
“We didn’t have a true point guard last season, which meant we had to rely on true scorers like Brian and my brother to run the offense, and that made us play slow,” said Travis Hallam, a senior and the team’s sixth man heading into the season. “Brett is an excellent true point guard, a guy who can handle the ball and pass the ball effectively. Once he gets ahold of the entire offense, we’ll be able to move the ball faster and that will really help us out this year.
“Knowing your role is the biggest thing we are hearing this offseason. If you’re a scorer, then go score; if you’re an inside player, then go inside and crash the boards. We are seeing a lot more defined roles this season.”
If Olson can handle the point guard position well enough, the Pioneers will be able to transform from playing in a set offense to moving faster and playing with more freedom, according to Hallam. However, the back court is only half the battle for a Pioneer team that finished 13-17 last year following a 2009-2010 campaign that saw them go 19-13 and advance to the SBC semifinals.
“Rebounding on both ends of the court will be crucial,” said Travis. “If we can control the boards, then our record will show it. We’ve never been able to do it here, but if we are able to do it, good things are going to happen.”
The Pioneers’ biggest break of the offseason came when fifth-year senior Rob Lewis was cleared to play after missing the 2010-2011 season with a back injury.
Lewis brings 89 games of experience and 48 career starts with him into the season as well as a career average of 9.9 points per game and two plus-100 rebounding seasons.
“Rob is going to play an important role on the glass for us,” said Travis. “He is such a big guy, I’d be surprised if he doesn’t average more than eight rebounds a game.”
Playing alongside Lewis in the front court will be sophomore forward Chris Udofia, who played in all 30 games last season as a freshman, averaging 8.3 points and 4.4 rebounds per game.
Similar to Stafford, Lewis and Chase Hallam, Udofia started games as a freshman, a trend that has happened in each season Scott has been head coach.
“We’re going to start five guys that all started as freshmen, one of which is going to be a freshman. I think that says a lot,” said Scott. “We want to continue that trend every year, because if guys who start as freshmen are starting still when they’re seniors, then that means they’re pretty good players.”
In addition to bringing back Lewis and Udofia, the Pioneers will have senior Justin Coughlin as a reserve forward. Coughlin brings 87 games and 74 starts worth of experience.
“Lack of respect” equates to motivation
While the experience and the offensive identity change are important to the Pioneers’ success this season, the team needs to stay motivated from the humbling loss last season to FIU in which they shot 34 percent from the field.
“The way last season ended was frustrating for us, because we were in position to win the Sun Belt and we were playing well, but fell off,” said Stafford. “I think the way we went about our offseason preparations speaks a lot to what that loss meant to us.
“We are definitely motivated having finished that way. We’ve put ourselves in a position to win it in previous seasons, and now, we hope to put ourselves in a position to win it again and then finish this season out the right way.”
If the loss wasn’t motivational enough for the Pioneers, the team’s preseason ranking in the SBC should serve as an additional inspiration. DU was slotted to finish fourth in the SBC’s West Division, a spot lower than where they finished last season, despite the overhaul of talent returning this season.
DU is the only team in the conference with two Preseason All-SBC players that is predicted to finish worse than third in their respective division. Chase Hallam was a Preseason All-SBC Second Team selection.
“It’s an honor to get those accolades, but it doesn’t mean anything until you prove it on the court,” said Chase. “It doesn’t mean anything to me right now, because I haven’t played that way yet. I have to play that way for my team to be successful and I know that.”
Scott agrees that the preseason rankings don’t mean anything at this point of the season, but he believes that they do serve a subtle purpose for the team.
“I do feel that [our ranking] is motivation for us,” said Scott. “At some level, for our players, they have to take it as a lack of respect toward them as players and for us as a program. I just want to make sure we are ready to play the conference season when it rolls around and we are playing our best basketball at that point.”
While the conference season is crucial in determining the Pioneers’ seeding in the postseason tournament, the team cannot afford to sleep on its toughest non-conference schedule to date, which features a trio of NCAA tournament teams — St. Mary’s (Calif.), Utah State and Northern Colorado — in addition to three 20-game winners from last season, including in-state foe Colorado State, Iona and Southern Mississippi.
Last season, DU went 4-10 outside of conference play, which had an impact on the team despite its great mid-season run, according to Scott.
“The 4-10 record came back to get us at the end of the year because of the fight we had to fight early on to right the ship,” said Scott. “We wore out because of that start as well as our injuries, and that’s why it’s important to get off to a good start. This year, we need to show that we are a better team in the non-conference schedule.”
This season the team’s expectations are similar to where they were last season at this time; however, the difference is the team is more comfortable with its identity than it has been in the past.
Last year, nine different players started for the Pioneers as the team tried various combinations of starters to find the right mix.
“Last year we put too much pressure on ourselves with certain expectations without knowing who we really were,” said Chase. “This season, we have the team that can be the best in the Sun Belt and we know that, so it’s not about exceeding expectations.”
As for his last season with his brother, Chase says winning the SBC tournament and advancing to the NCAA tournament would be a dream come true.
“Every year I want to win; I want to make it to the NCAA tournament,” said Chase. “If we [Travis and I] could go out there and live that childhood dream of ours, then that would be awesome.”
