Troy - 1/2/10

TROY, Ala. - The holidays are finished, and the Pioneers finished the 2009 portion of their schedule at 10-4 - their best start since returning to NCAA Division I. It's also only the third time in Denver history that the Pioneers have won 10 games before New Year's Day.

Senior Nate Rohnert became just the 28^th player in the 106-year history of Denver basketball to score 1,000 points in his career. Nate's sitting on 1,070 career points, which is 23^rd in DU history, and with 16 points he will jump to 21^st.

Rohnert is seventh in team history with 299 assists and 310 free throws made, and he's pulled down 429 rebounds.

If you missed junior Andrew Hooper's shot to win the Seattle game (No. 6 on the SportsCenter Top 10 that night), you can still catch it on Pioneer Vision along with Britteni Rice's game-winner for the DU women the night before.

And there are still 15 games left in the regular season.

Pioneer Comforts: The team was welcomed into a brand new hotel here in Troy. It's considerably nicer than another that the team stayed at in the past, affectionately referred to as the Bates Motel.

The trip in was fairly easy, as the men's and women's teams flew together, directly into Montgomery and bused an hour south.

The sun is shining with a brisk wind outside, while the Pioneers are inside Trojan Arena for shot around. Although it is a nice day, the team will hop right back on a plane tonight and head back to Denver.

About Troy: According to research guru Nicole Dupes, with the help of always reliable Wikipedia, Troy has one of the top collegiate rodeo programs east of the Mississippi. Unfortunately, it did not list the other collegiate rodeo programs east of the Mississippi, although Troy calf roper Ben Mayworth was the 2007 national champion.

Regular readers of this blog may remember that Troy's campus is home to a random red British phone booth. I am happy to report that it still resides in the middle of campus, but its door is now leaning against its side and there is still no phone inside.

Troy's notable alumni include NFL All-Pro linebacker DeMarcus Ware, Fox News' Jill Dobson and Survivor: Tocantins winner J.T. Thomas.  

Yearly travel totals:  

Total Flights - 4

Total Mileage Flown - 3,359

Total Bus Miles - 658

Total Number of Hotels - 4

Total Number of Different Airports - 5

Total Number of Airline Delays - 0

Total Number of Cancelled Flights - 0

Total Number of Bags Lost This Year - 0

Total Number of Names in the History of Troy - 6 (Troy State Normal School in 1887, Troy State Teachers College in 1929, Troy State College in 1957, Troy State University in 1967, and Troy University in 2005)