DENVER – It's never easy to open the season with a loss, but all things considered, this was encouraging.
A veteran Stanislaus State team that already had three games under its belt (one was an exhibition against a Division I team) was pushed to the limit and beyond Friday night by a young, inexperienced and totally-new MSU Denver team before finally escaping with a 79-75 overtime victory at the Auraria Event Center.
"We did some good things," Metropolitan State University of Denver coach
Michael Bahl said. "I played four freshmen, so the future is bright. We're going to take some lumps early because of our lack of experience.
"We'd much rather be coming off a win than a loss, but one game doesn't define a season. I love this group. I'm proud of my guys. Some of our youth showed through, but everything tonight was correctable. I'm excited to get back to work tomorrow."
With
Druce Asah (Tracy, Calif./Tracy) hitting four first-half 3-pointers,
Garrett Carter (Rialto, Calif./Etiwanda) scoring 10 second-half points,
Kendall McIntosh (Oakley, Calif./Freedom) dominating inside and McIntosh and
Cain van Heyningen (Amsterdam, Netherlands/Open schoolgemeenschap Bijlmer) blocking shots, the Roadrunners showed flashes of what things might look like when everything comes together.
The Roadrunners built two 12-point leads in the first half before settling for a 35-31 advantage at the break.
Stanislaus State (3-0) led 60-56 with just under six minutes to go and appeared set to close out the Roadrunners, but that's when Carter heated up with two driving hoops and a 3-pointer to account for all of MSU Denver's points in a 7-2 run for a 63-62 lead.
Carter's nifty bounce pass to McIntosh led to a basket that gave the Roadrunners a 66-62 lead with 2:22 left, but Stanislaus State's Ty Davis scored six of his 24 points in the closing minutes of regulation – including a driving hoop with 4.8 seconds left – to tie it. And when Andrew Mork's shot at the buzzer was blocked it forced overtime.
"Give credit to them," Bahl said. "Ty Davis is a senior, all-conference player. He's a nice player. That's a senior going against freshmen, and that's where you see some experience. We knew he was going to go downhill, but it's not always easy to stop him."
Stanislaus State jumped out in front in overtime and never trailed.
Marcus Jefferson's (Lewisville, Texas/Lewisville) driving hoop got the Roadrunners within 76-75 with 35 seconds left. Then Darius Scott made one of two free throws with 19 seconds left to put the Warriors up by two points.
The Warriors then forced Asah to take a contested 3-pointer that was off target with four seconds left, and Vasilije Sarabe made two free throws for the final margin.
Asah, a transfer from Cal State East Bay who has experience playing against Stanislaus State, led the Roadrunners with 16 points and also had four assists. He said the Roadrunners' effort against the Warriors shows their potential.
"They're a good team, so it tells us we have a future," Asah said. "We took them to overtime. We played hard, fought hard. We just need more time with each other and everything is going to jell.
"We're not really worried about this loss. We're just going to get back to work. We showed some strengths on offense. We did on defense, too, we just had a couple breakdowns. We're a young team, and we're all new, haven't played together before. So we did pretty well."
McIntosh had 14 points and blocked three shots, while Carter had all 10 of his in the second half before fouling out late in regulation, and van Heyningen blocked four shots. The four freshmen contributed too – the 6-foot-2 Mork had seven points, 11 rebounds and three assists, while
Demetrius Jackson (Orange County, Calif./El Toro) scored nine, Jefferson handed out a game-high five assists, and
Elijah Straughter (Fresno, Calif./Clovis North) had seven points and eight rebounds.
"Stanislaus State is a really nice team," Bahl said. "They know how to play and they're a veteran team. At times you saw their veterans vs. our new guys. You could sort of see what that means. We need more games under our belt – as many as possible."
MSU Denver shot a strong 51.9 percent (27 of 52) from the field and made 9 of 22 from 3 (40.9 percent). Free throws were costly, though, as they made only 12 of 25 (48 percent).
"We had some good moments, had some rolls," Bahl said. "We missed some free throws, but we're a very good shooting team. We just haven't been put in that situation in a while. Games like this are only going to make us better.
"We competed. For the last 10 minutes of the game, we had three freshmen on the floor. I don't know how many teams at our level are doing that. And they held their own. We believe in them and they are the future of our program, and they did a phenomenal job competing."
