TROY, Ala. – It’s
been a great week for Denver basketball, and there are high hopes that
it will continue tonight against Troy. Both the men and women swept
Western Kentucky and South Alabama. It was the first time ever that the
men’s team beat both Sun Belt powerhouses in the same regular season.
If you missed it, Nate Rohnert
was named Sun Belt Conference Men’s Basketball Player of the Week for
his effort against Western Kentucky. That accomplishment, while richly
deserved, was somewhat of a surprise in a league that consistently has
players with gaudy numbers. Because of the offense that DU runs, it is
unlikely that any player is consistently going to put up a lot of points
and rebounds. The voters of the award should be commended for realizing
just how good Rohnert’s game was against Western: 22 points, six
rebounds, nine assists, four steals and a block in 37 minutes. Two of
those 22 points were on a backdoor layup with 13 seconds remaining that
sealed the game.
Rohnert
is the only player remaining from the previous coaching staff, but it
could be argued that he may be the best suited player for Denver’s
system. Certainly no player has improved as much as Rohnert since Joe Scott
and his coaching staff came to Denver. Rohnert was a pretty good player
his freshman year, but two years later he’s in the running for first
team all-conference. Rohnert is fourth in the SBC in assists (4.60),
sixth in steals (1.40), eighth in scoring (15.0), 11th in assists/turnover ratio (1.53) and 17th in rebounding (5.1).
Tonight’s
game will be a challenge. The Trojans are the hottest team in the Belt
right now, winning five straight – and four of them were on the road.
One of those wins? A 24-point drilling of South Alabama on the road in
Mobile. Needless to say, Troy has a good basketball team.
About Troy:
Easily the question I get most when discussing the Sun Belt is, “Where
is Troy anyway?” It is about an hour south of Montgomery and an hour and
a half north of Panama City Beach, Florida. No matter what, it’s not
very easy to reach from Denver. Really, most towns in the Belt are
within an hour or two of a major airport with direct flights to Denver.
Troy and Monroe, Louisiana, are the exceptions. However, the teams were
fortunate enough to have a charter flight down here, meaning it was a
fairly easy trip to Montgomery followed by a short drive to Troy.
While
not easy to get to, it certainly is easy enough to find everything once
you are in Troy. People in town say there you can reach any part of
town within 10 minutes, including the Bandmaster Hall of Fame, which
sits in the middle of campus.
Without
a doubt, the nicest part of town is the Troy Campus, which sits atop a
hill just off the main drag. The buildings are all brick and connected
by tree-covered walkways, and the athletic facilities blend in nicely
with the rest of campus, much like those at DU. Perhaps the strangest
part of campus is the name of the main bookstore: Barnes & Noble.
It’s right in the center of campus and complete with a Starbucks that
also serves cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory.
The
Trojans basketball team has a successful track record and has been to
the NCAA Tournament in 1988, 1991, 1992, 1993 and 2003, although many of
them were when the school went by Troy State. The problem for some
outside fans is that Troy has been in five conferences in the past 20
years, making them somewhat difficult to track.
Like
the rest of the campus buildings, Trojan Arena blends right in and
could easily be mistaken for the history department. The only downside
to an otherwise nice arena is the number of arts crawling around. They
are not easily seen at first, but then they start to bite, which is
considerably more noticeable.
The
big surprise was a look in the display case. A few years ago, Troy won
the Atlantic Sun Conference Tournament championship, for which the team
was awarded the Cliff Wettig memorial trophy. That award is named after
the founder of the Atlantic Sun Conference and the father of DU senior
associate athletic director Pam Wettig, who was as surprised as anyone to see her father’s name on a trophy. In fact, Joe Scott pointed it out to Wettig.
Sneakers:
This weekend coaches across the NCAA will be wearing sneakers with
their suits as part of the annual Coaches vs. Cancer Suits and Sneakers
awareness weekend. Denver’s coaches are no exception, as Joe Scott and his staff will be sporting white Adidas sneakers on the sideline.
Writing Award: Shortly after DU hired Joe Scott, our friends in the communications department across campus decided to profile him in University of Denver Magazine. Richard Chapman, the writer of “Joe Scott:
More Than Just Tough Talk,” was recently awarded the CASE District VI
Gold Award for the feature story. The story is still available online at
http://www.du.edu/magazine/archive/2007/04/Sports.html.
Additionally,
Chapman won a Bronze Award for “Workers Spend Long Nights Converting
Floor,” an online story about the difficulty involved with converting
Magness Arena from an ice rink to basketball court and back again, which
workers often do a few times a week. Certainly, all of us in the
athletic department send our congratulations out to Richard for two
great stories.
Son of ShamWow:
I hate to say it, but our good friend Mitch Hyder replaced what was
thought to be his one-of-a-kind ShamWow shirt with one that looks really
similar, except it is black. Guess what. He wore the shirt for both
games against Western Kentucky and South Alabama. Although it’s a quick
turnaround, which translates to “probably not laundered,” the Son of
ShamWow shirt is likely making the trip to Troy.
Yearly travel totals:
Total Flights – 16
Total Mileage Flown – 13,451
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