DENVER – The bad news is, the MSU Denver men's basketball team has won only once in the last 32 days.
The good news is, the Roadrunners have only played three times, with a close loss and a loss to an undefeated nationally-ranked opponent preceding a 71-70 victory last Saturday over Westminster.
"Winning helps buy-in," MSU Denver coach
Michael Bahl said. "Winning helps establish culture. It speeds the process up. … We need another game to see if we can carry this momentum over."
That chance – following Tuesday's fifth postponement of a matchup with CSU-Pueblo – comes
Thursday, in a 7:30 p.m. home game against UCCS.
MSU Denver is 4-5 overall and 4-4 in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference, while UCCS is 2-3 – both overall and in the RMAC.
"It feels good to finally get back in the win column," forward
Laolu Oke said after the win over Westminster. "We lost a couple of games we could have won, but we pushed through and got one."
The Roadrunners are currently tied for fifth in the RMAC standings and are hoping to improve upon that.
However, even though UCCS is ninth, the Mountain Lions were picked to finish third this season and two of their losses were to league leaders and nationally-ranked Colorado School of Mines and Colorado Mesa. The other was by eight points to Adams State – a team that beat MSU Denver by six.
Clutch plays figure to be key, and MSU Denver got plenty of those Saturday as
Tyrei Randall,
Keyshaad Dixon and
Kobe Sanders hit critical jump shots in the closing minutes, and
Mavrick Gildyard scored the winning basket on an offensive rebound off a missed free throw with 10 seconds left.
"It was great to see, because you see it every day in practice," Oke said. "It's something they always do."
Said Bahl: "We showed a lot of resolve. … A lot of players stepped up. I can name nine guys who contributed, and our bench was outstanding."
Oke saved the game on a blocked shot with two seconds to go and earned his third RMAC Defensive Player of the Week award of the season.
The NCAA Division II leader in offensive rebounds per game (5.6) while also ranking second in total rebounds (103) and 10th in rebounds per game (he's averaging 11.4 in nine games, while no player ahead of him has played more than four games), Oke has become a major focus of opponents, who are doing anything possible to keep him off the glass.
"They're collapsing, sending two or three guys every time, and it's hard for me to get my boards," Oke said. "But my teammates are there to help me out. That's good."
