Photo by: Justin Edmonds
The University of Denver men’s basketball team defeated the University of Arkansas at Little Rock during Sunday’s game 54-40. The Pioneers who are now 7-9 overall and 3-2 in conference earned a win against the 11-5 overall and 3-2 in conference Trojans. The win, however, came with a price.
David Kummer went down during the game with a right fibula injury.
“It was numb in five seconds. I heard a pop and now we are on the way to the doctor,” Kummer said after the game.
Before Kummer left the game, he was able to rack up seven points, a team high four steals, two assists and one rebound. As of the season, Kummer leads the team in many categories including scoring average, rebounds and playing time. Losing Kummer is a significant loss for the Pioneers.
“The team is going to have to step up and every guy is going to have to do more and we still have to keep getting better,” said Head Coach Joe Scott.
This is Kummer’s third significant injury during his career with the team. Kummer missed all of the 2006-07 season and a sizeable portion of the 2004-05 season due to knee injuries.
“Obviously it is hard to believe that something like that happens three times to one person, but maybe out of all of this something good is going to happen for David Kummer,” said Scott.
Players remain optimistic and stress that they are focused on building a program. Sophomore forward Nate Rohnert and freshman guard Kyle Lewis both reached double digits in scoring with 13 and 11, respectively. Freshman forward Rob Lewis led all players with four assists.
“We are young chronologically and building our program, but it was nice the way we got the win after he (Kummer) went out,” said Scott.
Senior center Adam Tanner, who has been a consistent force on the team, led with 14 points. Tanner also had four rebounds during Sunday’s victory. Overall, Tanner is leading the team this season in free throws made and assists.
The Pioneers’ victory over the Trojans was earned after having lost their last two games, one of which was last Wednesday against New Orleans. Kummer scored 19 points during the game against New Orleans, but the Pioneers came up short as they lost 65-49.
While the rest of DU was on break or skiing in the mountains, the Pioneers struggled and began the academic quarter with a 3-5 overall record. They began the academic quarter, however, with a win against Louisiana-Monroe 66-50.
The Pioneers have 13 games left in the season and all of them are conference games. This Thursday DU will face Arkansas State at home at 7:30 p.m. The Arkansas State Indians have a 7-8 overall record and a 2-3 in conference record. Two keys players to watch out for are Ryan Wedel and Adrian Banks. Banks led his team with 29 points in their defeat over Louisiana-Monroe.
