Denver men’s basketball’s Cinderella story came to an end on Tuesday night with a spirited 68-76 loss to the South Dakota State Jackrabbits in the finals of the Summit League Tournament. Despite a heartbreaking end of the season, especially for the seniors, the Crimson and Gold have plenty of reasons to keep their heads held high.
DU’s semifinal opponent was the first sign that they might have a truly special opportunity. Omaha, like Denver, carried a losing record into the Summit League tournament and had to upset a higher seed to win. They took down the third-seed North Dakota Fighting Hawks 73-72 in a game that went down to the final possession, just like the DU-UMKC quarterfinal the day before.
Denver started the game out hot. After scoring zero points in the first half on Saturday, fifth-year guard Tommy Bruner, hit three straight three-pointers to catapult the Crimson and Gold to a 9-0 lead in the first two minutes. A quick lay from junior forward Touko Tainamo pushed the lead to 11, by far DU’s biggest lead of the tournament.
Bruner and the rest of the DU offense went cold shortly after their early explosion. After scoring 16 points in the first four minutes, they struggled to put the ball in the hoop, going on separate 0-6 and 0-7 shooting runs. They scored another 16 points in the entire remainder of the first half.
To make things worse, Omaha’s star forward Frankie Fidler found his footing and began running downhill. DU’s defense had no answer for the towering Fidler as he drove to the rack with ease. He scored 16 of his own to erase the once-intimidating Denver lead and put Omaha up 34-32 at halftime.
Knowing they had to change their game plan once again, Denver pushed their chips into the center. Head coach Jeff Wulbrun switched the porous man-to-man defensive structure to a zone look and gave sophomore forward Isaiah Carr more minutes in light of Tainamo’s serious struggles on both sides of the ball.
The defensive switch worked. Omaha had trouble moving the ball into the center of the floor, where Fidler did most of his damage from, and scenes of the players standing still around the key made the second half look more like a chess match than a basketball game.
If the game was a chess match, it was freshman guard DeAndre Craig who was making moves for Denver. His 12 second-half points led the Crimson and Gold, and with Bruner’s foot injury still clearly bothering him, that was something that DU desperately needed.
Carr’s strong rebounding stopped Omaha from getting second-chance looks. However, Denver still had trouble running up the score, and the inevitable work by Fidler kept the two teams neck-and-neck for the entire second half. No fewer than five lead changes kept the fans on the edge of their seats until the final two minutes.
The entire team contributed in the final stretch. Bruner and junior forward Pedro Lopez-Sanvicente hit clutch free throws, while strong paint points came from graduate student guard Jaxon Brenchley, Craig and Carr. Carr could be considered the semifinals MVP with a near double double (9 points, 10 rebounds).
Fidler did all he could, leading both teams with 27 points at the end of the game. But a prayer of a heave at the buzzer was where the magic ended for Omaha. Fidler’s attempt sailed wide right, prompting an ecstatic celebration from the championship-bound Crimson and Gold.
Denver was just one win from their first NCAA tournament in program history, but their next opponent would be their toughest yet: the 21-12 SDSU Jackrabbits. Wulbrun tempered expectations in his postgame interview.
“South Dakota State has a great team, they just have so many weapons [and] are so deep. We’ll enjoy this for a little while, and later tonight we’ll begin working on the scout,” said Wulbrun.
The DU head coach did not shy away from talking up his players, however.
“The defense is improved, isn’t it, from the regular season? Really proud of the guys…we have a resilient group, and man they just keep competing,” Wulbrun said.
That competition level would have to continue because the Crimson and Gold walked into the belly of the beast. A capacity crowd of over 8,000 fans, mostly SDSU supporters who made the short drive to Sioux Falls, represented the loudest crowd Denver had played in front of all season.
The Jackrabbits fed off the energy early. They jumped to a suffocating 22-5 lead in the first nine minutes of the game, raining four triples down on Denver. They would sink a total of six deep balls in the first half, while the Crimson and Gold hit just two three-pointers on 12 attempts.
Bruner did his best to run the offense on his still-injured ankle and keep pace with SDSU, but an intimidating 14-point deficit at halftime had Denver’s work cut out for them.
There were a few adjustments to be made. SDSU was simply the better team. Led by their star guard Zeke Mayo, the Jackrabbits responded to every DU burst with consistent scoring of their own. For the first 15 minutes of the second half, the Crimson and Gold were lucky to be within 20 points of the leaders.
However, something changed in the mind of the fifth-year guard, Brenchley. At 25 years old and in his final college basketball season, he didn’t want to go down without a fight. After scoring just two points in the first half, he was a man-possessed after halftime, putting up 18 points. 10 of those came in what would be his final comeback attempt of his college career.
DU pushed their hardest in the final five minutes. Despite being down by 17, they chipped away with Brenchley and Craig as the first two looks, bringing the score to as close as within five on two separate occasions. Shell-shocked, the Jackrabbits didn’t hit a field goal in the last six minutes of the game.
Unfortunately for Denver, their attempts to scrape out a win by playing the foul game were futile. The SDSU shooters were locked in, hitting eleven of fourteen free throws down the stretch.
Despite their valiant efforts, the DU men conceded silently as the pro-SDSU crowd erupted at the final buzzer, celebrating their team’s seventh March Madness bid in 12 years.
Brenchley’s final game in college basketball was one to remember. He finished with a near-double double (20 points, nine rebounds), leading his team in scoring for the first time since Feb. 10 vs. St. Thomas.
Bruner, haunted by his injury all tournament, was not the same player who led the nation in scoring. But his dynamic skill was still apparent as he dropped 17, and his final time suiting up for the Crimson and Gold was an appropriate cap to the best season a men’s basketball player has ever had at the DU.
There’s a lot for Wulbrun to build off of here. Losing Brenchley and Bruner alongside senior guard Isaiah Addo-Ankrah will sting, but Craig’s “Chicago toughness,” as Wulbrun put it last Saturday, will give DU fans something to cheer about for years to come.
This is the furthest the men’s basketball program has ever made it since jumping to D-I in 1998. They made waves in the Summit League, becoming the first seven-seed to play for the championship in almost two decades. It’s painful missing out on the big dance by such a narrow margin, but this season should be celebrated.
