DENVER – For MSU Denver on Saturday night, its best offense was great defense.
The Roadrunners maintained their defensive effort for the full 40 minutes, and after the offense kicked into gear in the second half, they rolled to a 75-59 victory over Regis.
"Even in the first half, when we weren't making shots, we didn't allow that to dictate our effort on the defensive side of the floor," MSU Denver coach
Dan Ficke said. "We continued to rebound, we continued to defend and we made it hard for them when both teams couldn't throw it in the ocean.
"We told the guys at halftime, 'Keep defending, let our energy come from our defense, and shots are going to fall.'"
Sure enough, the shots did fall – nearly all of them.
The Roadrunners made 12 of their first 14 second-half field goal attempts and, after trailing 29-27 at halftime and 32-29 early in the second half, they used a 14-0 run for a 43-32 lead and kept the Rangers at bay for the rest of the night.
"We just came out with more urgency," guard
Quave Propst-Allison said. "We came out slow the first half.
"With the leadership we have in the locker room, multiple guys using their voice, everybody knew to just pick it up a notch."
While Regis shot just 36.4 percent from the field for the game, MSU Denver finished at 53.8 percent for the game, including 76.0 percent in the final 20 minutes. It's the first time the Roadrunners shot better than 75.0 percent in a half since Feb. 9, 2008, when it was 18 for 24 in the second half of a 109-80 victory at UCCS.
"We were just playing fast, playing our kind of basketball," guard
KJ Garrett said.
Propst-Allison had four points in the decisive run, while Mario Lacy, Jr., and Garnett each had three and
Brayden Maldonado and
Marzouq Ibn Abdur-Razaaq each had two.
That was a microcosm of the how the night was for the Roadrunners, as five players scored doubles figures, even though
Caleb McGill – the team's second-leading scorer – was held to six.
"Ultimately that's what we want, an offense with five or six guys in double figures where even on a night when a Caleb or a Brayden only has single digits, you can still win," Ficke said.
Said Propst-Allison: "It's very fun. We have a lot of talented guys, people who can shoot, people who can dunk, people who can create for others. When we have a lot of people involved, that's how we're going to win basketball games."
Maldonado and Garrett each scored 14 points, while Lacy had 13, Propst-Allison scored 11 and Abdur-Razaaq added 10.
Propst-Allison moved back into the starting lineup for the third time this season, with
Ryan Maslow coming off the bench for the first time. Maslow stuffed the stats sheet with six points, five rebounds, two assists, two steals and he had a game-high plus-21 rating.
"Ryan did a great job embracing it and understanding it, and Quave was phenomenal, especially defensively early on (Chase Mayo) Harmon (Regis' leading scorer)," Ficke said.
The slow start could have been doubly tough for an MSU Denver team that had suffered a disappointing home loss Friday night against UCCS.
"That was a super-tough loss, but our mindset was, 'Next game,'" Garrett said. "You can't really dwell on the last game. We had a next-game mentality. And now we'll have it for Tuesday (at Colorado School of Mines)."
MSU Denver improved to 11-5 overall and 5-5 in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference, while Regis dropped to 8-9 and 5-6.
While the league's top three of Colorado Mesa (11-0), Fort Lewis (10-1) and Mines (10-1) have separated themselves, Chadron State is fourth at 6-5 and MSU Denver is one of six teams with five league wins. The Roadrunners and Black Hills State lead that group at 5-5, while three teams are 5-6 and UCCS is 5-7.
"I'm proud of our guys' effort, to bounce back after a heartbreaker last night," Ficke said. "We talked about being goldfish – have a short memory. We had to move on and play with more urgency. They did that tonight."
