Photo by: Ryan Lumpkin
The DU men’s basketball team is one win away from capturing its best record in the program’s 89-year history at the Division I level, following consecutive wins last weekend over Louisiana-Lafayette and Louisiana-Monroe.
The Pioneers improved to 20-8 on the season with Saturday’s 76-57 win against ULM, tying a school record for wins in a season.
“Transforming the program has been a process, and it’s all been about our players,” said head coach Joe Scott. “They did it by accomplishing a winning road record last weekend and now, in these last two games, have taken us to 20 wins for the second time in school history. We have one game left, and if we can win it, then we will have transformed in all the respects we wanted.”
This year’s team is currently tied with the 2004-2005 squad, which finished 20-11 and won the Sun Belt Conference regular season title.
“It means a lot for us to win 20 games because of what we went through to get to this point,” said senior captain Brian Stafford. “We struggled last year, and things didn’t work out in a lot of ways. Through those trials, we’ve continued to work hard, and we are being rewarded for that hard work, which makes it special for us.”
The Pioneers face North Texas on Sunday in Magness Arena at 1 p.m., where a chance to make history will be on the line. Moreover, DU (10-5 in SBC play) has a chance to capture one of the top two seeds in the SBC tournament if Arkansas-Little Rock loses to both UNT and Arkansas State before DU takes the court on Sunday.
With the win over ULM and Florida Atlantic’s loss to Western Kentucky, the Pioneers were able to clinch a bye into the quarterfinals of the SBC tournament.
However, the team isn’t looking past North Texas and an opportunity to enter March as winners of five of their last six games.
“We’ve got to finish February before we look to March,” said Scott. “Next Sunday is game No. 29 and that’s been our mantra all year; we’ve got to stay on one game and focus on North Texas. March will come soon enough.”
Although tied with ULL for second place in the West Division of the SBC, Denver earned a bye because they secured a top four-conference record with FAU trailing them by three whole games with only two games remaining on their schedule.
In the win over ULM, Stafford led all scorers with 25 points, including six three-point baskets, which helped the team tie a Magness Arena record with 16 made three-pointers.
“We were unselfish in the way we worked the ball around and that was important for us, because it created a lot of open shots,” said Stafford. “We even had more opportunities, but we had patience to keep moving the ball, which was crucial.”
In addition, Stafford surpassed UALR’s Alan Barksdale for 5th place in the Sun Belt career three-point field goals made with 257. Also, Stafford became DU’s all-time leader in games played with 121, passing former teammates Kyle Lewis and Nate Rohnert.
“It’s a blessing to have been able to play that much in my career,” said Stafford. “I’ve been really fortunate to play a lot of games and stay healthy.”
While Stafford enjoyed a career afternoon, the rest of the Pioneers took advantage of ULM’s zone defense, recording a season-high 22 assists from eight different players.
With patience on offense, DU has been shooting lights out recently, averaging 55 percent from the field over the last five games, including a 59.2 percent from the field in Thursday’s 77-52 win over ULL.
The Pioneers are currently 8th in the nation in field goal percentage, averaging 49.3 percent from the field.
In Thursday’s game, the Pioneer defense smothered the Ragin’ Cajuns’ offense, holding them to 34 percent shooting from the field.
“Obviously we came out ready to play tonight,” said Scott after Thursday’s win. “Point of emphasis in our practices was our defense and I thought we played tremendously on defense. When we are good defensively, our offense follows suit. Playing collectively is always important, and I think that’s what we saw tonight.”
Throughout the weekend, the Pioneers saw great production from their starting five; however, several strong performances from the bench helped DU push its win streak to three.
On Thursday, senior Justin Coughlin finished with 14 points and four blocks from the bench, while freshman Royce O’Neale recorded 11 rebounds and seven assists.
Senior Travis Hallam shined coming off the bench on Saturday, finishing with eight points.
“It’s important to get the core group of guys playing well,” said Scott on Saturday. “It opens the door for our other guys like Travis did today, and like Justin did on Thursday. These are characteristics of a good team, guys stepping up, and we’ve shown we’re a good team. Now, we have to finish showing that in our last game.”
