DENVER – Back in 1997, MSU Denver (formerly Metro State) lost its men's basketball head coach when Charles Bradley was hired away by NCAA Division I Loyola Marymount.
But what was MSU Denver's loss was also MSU Denver's gain.
Because one of the finalists for the Loyola Marymount job was Mike Dunlap. And Dunlap immediately set about to land the job in downtown Denver.
"I'd asked the athletic director (at Loyola Marymount) to take my information and pass it on to Metro," Dunlap said. "And they flew me in the next day for an interview."
Dunlap changed the program instantly and forever.
He inherited a 13-win team and promptly won his first 13 games as head coach, guiding his first group of Roadrunners to a 25-3 record and a trip to the NCAA Tournament to cap the 1997-98 season.
The following year his team played in the NCAA Division II national championship game. And in year three the Roadrunners won it all.
The 1999-2000 national championship team is set to be celebrated in a 20-year reunion anniversary Saturday at halftime of the Roadrunners' 7 p.m. game against Colorado School of Mines at the Auraria Event Center.
Dunlap said the program he inherited needed some organization and some support. He recalled the impact of former MSU Denver vice president for administration Joseph Arcese as being critical.
"Joe said give me a list, and give me a year," Dunlaps said. "We looked at what (Nebraska-)Kearney and (Fort) Hays (State) were doing and he tried to match it – they were the two best teams in the league (Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference) at the time.
"Whether it was pay for assistant coaches or gym time, he tried to do it the right way. Obviously you need the financial support. They wanted to be good and in the national spotlight, and we chipped away at it."
On the court, those chips were more like chunks.
Dunlap brought in seven new players the first season and brought about increased discipline, from classroom expectations to early-morning practices.
"The first thing we added was a higher academic standard," Dunlap said. "Three or four players fled. The issues with academics were solvable with increased time at study table, and the early morning workouts took care of any shenanigans."
Dunlap, who previously coached professionally in Australia, called on connections both there and in California to help fill out the roster with talented and disciplined players.
And already on board was one DeMarcos Anzures, a sophomore on Dunlap's first team. Anzures would go on to be an All-American and is still MSU Denver's all-time scoring leader.
"We got some good bigs from Australia who helped us," Dunalp said. "Metro was such a diverse community that players from overseas were really embraced. Lee Barlow (from Australia) was a stud. He was 6-9 or 6-10 and 260 pounds and he could play the 3, the 4 or the 5. And he was ornery.
"And Charles deserves full credit for DeMarcos. When we got to the national championship game, he was one of better players on the floor. And when we won it, he was the best player of the day for sure."
But it was a three-year journey to get to the title game.
"It was a journey of wonderment," Dunlap said.
Dunlap's first team got a first-hand look at NCAA Tournament intensity, as it ventured into Brookings, S.D., and first beat conference rival Fort Hays State before falling to the fourth-ranked home team 93-79. Frost Arena provided one of the most passionate atmospheres in Division II hoops.
"It introduced them to what that was like," Dunlap said. "And once they took a bite of that apple, they wanted more."
After making it all the way to the title game before falling to Kentucky Wesleyan in 1999, the Roadrunners were considered among the favorites throughout the 1999-2000 season.
"We were loaded," Dunlap said. "Usually our practices were better than the games."
They lost their first two games, and they suffered a major blow when starting center Jason Johnson was lost for the season due to injury about halfway through the season.
But they were rarely challenged otherwise while going 33-4. One only of their five NCAA Tournament games was close. And the rematch with Kentucky Wesleyan in the title game was a 97-79 blowout.
"We wanted to get back there," Dunlap said. "We knew we had a good team with all those guys back, and most of the time it wasn't a question of if we would win, but how we would win.
"Kentucky Wesleyan was the gold standard then, and we were fortunate enough to win it."
MSU Denver won another national title two seasons later and continued a long stretch of success that has produced an all-time winning percentage of .710, which is still the best in Division II history.
Dunlap stayed in charge through the 2005-06 season, going to the NCAA Tournament all nine seasons, compiling a 248-50 record with four RMAC regular-season championships and six RMAC Tournament titles. He then took an assistant coaching job with the NBA's Denver Nuggets.
He was later associate head coach at both Arizona and Oregon, an assistant coach at St. John's and the head coach of the NBA's Charlotte Bobcats. Ironically, he got the job at Loyola Marymount, his alma mater, in 2014 and is coaching there today.
But he remembers well when MSU Denver basketball carved out its niche in Denver sports culture, when it was the most successful college program in the state, regardless of level. He remembers the standing ovation the national championship team got when it was introduced at a Nuggets game.
Dunlap, Anzures, Barlow and nearly all the key members of that team will be back at the Auraria Event Center on Saturday.
"It'll be fun," Dunlap said. "Quietly, there's a peacefulness to something like that. No words need to be spoken, because you know you stand with tall timber. Day in and day out I'm happy for the players and staff. Because … they know."
