MOBILE, Ala. - The
team is shooting around at the Mitchell Center on the campus of the University
of South Alabama.
It seems a little strange,
but this is the last true road trip of the season. After tonight, just one
regular season game remains: a matchup with Louisiana-Lafayette at Magness
Arena on Saturday at 5 p.m. MT.
That, of course, will be
the final game for Nate Rohnert, who
many have said is Denver's only senior. Nate is the only four-year player
suiting up for his final game, but he's not the only senior.
Tom Chott
joined the Pioneers before the 2008-09 season after spending a couple of years
at Northeastern Junior College in Sterling, Colo., and a redshirt freshman
season at Creighton.
It's possible that you
have not heard much, if anything, about Chott. He played all of three minutes
in his lone game last season, when he fired up his only shot, and he's been in
three games this season. Chott scored one point on a free throw, and has a
block and a steal to his credit this year.
A local guy from
Littleton, Chott is one of those guys who contributes more to the team than most
fans could ever imagine.
The Regis Jesuit High
School product is part of DU's scout team that simulates Denver's upcoming
opponent in order to get the regulars prepared. In other words, in addition to
knowing Denver's complex system, Chott and company have to learn what every
other team does and simulate it in practice.
Like Alex Pickert, Kyle Chynoweth, Blake Foeman and Trevor Noonan, who also regularly work with the scout team, Chott
shows up to practice every day, sprints through every play and rarely gets a
minute off.
In fact, as I typed that
last line, the players on the court needed an extra player for a drill, and
Chott immediately sprinted down the court to join in.
He and the other guys work
as hard as any other player in practice, even though they know they're unlikely
to play in the games.
The reason it's easy to
cheer for a guy like Chott is that he does it all without complaining. He does
it because he loves basketball.
So, when both seniors are
honored before this Saturday's game, here's hoping the fans recognize a guy who's
rarely recognized.
Quick Trip: This
is the only time this year that the Pioneers are playing on the road Thursday
before turning around and hosting a home game on Saturday.
Because of the quick
turnaround time, the team chartered the flight to Mobile, which means yesterday's
trip from the Ritchie Center doors to the front door of the hotel took about
five hours. Comparitively, the team generally would have headed to DIA about
2.5-3 hours before the scheduled departure, flown 2.5 hours to New Orleans and
then bussed another couple of hours to Mobile.
More importantly, we will
take off immediately after the game tonight and enjoy two nights in our own
beds before the team has to face the Ragin' Cajuns on Saturday.
Yearly travel totals:
Total Flights
- 19
Total Mileage Flown - 14,836
Total Bus Miles
- 1,621
Total Number of Hotels - 14
Total Number of Different Airports - 15
Total Number of Airline Delays - 2
Total Number of Cancelled Flights - 0
Total Number of Bags Lost This Year - 1
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Magness Arena Fans - 2/18/10
DENVER - Great
showing at Magness Arena at the last home game, both by the Pioneers against
the Florida Atlantic Owls and by the fans. The announced attendance of 4,117
was the second largest crowd for a Sun Belt Conference game at DU and the
biggest since a 90-84 win over North Texas at Magness Arena on Feb. 13, 2003.
Only games involving regional rivals Wyoming and Colorado State, and Pac 10 powerhouse Stanford, have brought more fans out to a men's basketball game at Magness Arena.
It seems that more and more people are starting to notice that the Pioneers have gone 34-7 at Magness Arena since head coach Joe Scott took over in March 2007. Denver is currently riding a 13-game home winning streak, which is tied for the 12th longest in the country. Strangely, the team that DU is tied with is Northern Iowa, which was the last visiting team to win in Magness Arena in a close season opening 71-65 game. The Panthers have gone on to clinch the Missouri Valley Conference regular season title and earn a No. 24 ranking in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches' Poll with a 22-3 record.
The student section is beginning to earn a reputation around the conference for its boisterousness and creativity, not to mention clean, cheering. That clean aspect cannot be overstated because when commentators talk about the best fans, they tend to talk about the ones that come up with original chants and do not use profanity.
Apparently, it also helps when you wear ridiculously colorful pants in the student section, too.
Light Reading: Denver players Andrew Hooper, Nate Rohnert, Justin Coughlin and Kyle Lewis went to University Park Elementary School last night and read to a group of 15-20 kids.
According to Hooper, they read a book called, "Ping Pong Pig."
"I read something about a duck," Hooper said. "Kyle read what happens when the world sleeps at night, and Nate read something about a dinosaur. Justin got the part about the duck."
A few of the players did something similar last year at Slavens Elementary School.
Yearly travel totals:
Total Flights - 16
Total Mileage Flown - 11,613
Total Bus Miles - 1,453
Total Number of Hotels - 12
Total Number of Different Airports - 12
Total Number of Airline Delays - 1
Total Number of Cancelled Flights - 0
Total Number of Bags Lost This Year - 1
Only games involving regional rivals Wyoming and Colorado State, and Pac 10 powerhouse Stanford, have brought more fans out to a men's basketball game at Magness Arena.
It seems that more and more people are starting to notice that the Pioneers have gone 34-7 at Magness Arena since head coach Joe Scott took over in March 2007. Denver is currently riding a 13-game home winning streak, which is tied for the 12th longest in the country. Strangely, the team that DU is tied with is Northern Iowa, which was the last visiting team to win in Magness Arena in a close season opening 71-65 game. The Panthers have gone on to clinch the Missouri Valley Conference regular season title and earn a No. 24 ranking in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches' Poll with a 22-3 record.
The student section is beginning to earn a reputation around the conference for its boisterousness and creativity, not to mention clean, cheering. That clean aspect cannot be overstated because when commentators talk about the best fans, they tend to talk about the ones that come up with original chants and do not use profanity.
Apparently, it also helps when you wear ridiculously colorful pants in the student section, too.
Light Reading: Denver players Andrew Hooper, Nate Rohnert, Justin Coughlin and Kyle Lewis went to University Park Elementary School last night and read to a group of 15-20 kids.
According to Hooper, they read a book called, "Ping Pong Pig."
"I read something about a duck," Hooper said. "Kyle read what happens when the world sleeps at night, and Nate read something about a dinosaur. Justin got the part about the duck."
A few of the players did something similar last year at Slavens Elementary School.
Yearly travel totals:
Total Flights - 16
Total Mileage Flown - 11,613
Total Bus Miles - 1,453
Total Number of Hotels - 12
Total Number of Different Airports - 12
Total Number of Airline Delays - 1
Total Number of Cancelled Flights - 0
Total Number of Bags Lost This Year - 1
Saturday, February 13, 2010
North Texas - 2/13/10
DENTON, Texas - Just a few weeks ago, we were talking about never seeing snow during a
Sun Belt Conference road trip. The number of times doubled today.
The Denton area got nearly a foot of snow in the past few days. Fortunately, it's been warm enough that it's been melting, although that seems to be making a slushy mess on the roads and sidewalks. The city seems to be running as normal, as opposed to a certain town in northeast Arkansas a few weeks ago.
The team stayed at the hotel in Murfreesboro after the game on Thursday night, something that does not often happen often after games. After a quick breakfast in the lobby at around 7:30 a.m. on Friday, the team headed to the Nashville airport for a flight to Dallas/Fort Worth and a short drive north to Denton.
In the last blog, we mentioned that the Murphy Center was only 36.1 miles from the Nashville airport. The Super Pit in Denton is 35.0 miles from DFW, just 0.6 miles farther than the Ritchie Center is from DIA.
Both Denver and North Texas arrived at DFW at roughly the same time, as UNT had played at New Orleans on Thursday night.
After a quick lunch in the hotel lobby, the players had a few hours to relax before practice at the Super Pit at 6 p.m. The team then went to Texas Roadhouse, which of course was founded in Clarksville, Ind., and has become legendary, according to the back of the menu.
Aside from freshman Blake Foeman, who has been suffering from food poisoning during the trip, everyone appears to be in high spirits and ready for tonight's game.
Watch Out for Skeeters: Brothers Travis Hallam and Chase Hallam are making a sort of homecoming at Saturday's game. The Hallams grew up in Mesquite, Texas, home of the Mesquite High School Skeeters, which is just over 50 miles southeast of Denton.
According to Travis and Chase, they have already lined up tickets for several family and friends, and dozens of others have told them that they'll be making the trip. In all, they expect in the neighborhood of 100 people at the Super Pit cheering for them, which is especially nice in enemy territory.
Among those, of course, will be their father, Doug, and mother, Debbie, who have traveled from Mesquite to nearly every game this season. The have said that it's easier for them now that their sons both are playing for Denver, even if "home" games 700 miles from their home, which is why they expect to miss no more than 3-4 games this season (they have or will watch them on television or Pioneer Vision, of course).
When the boys were in high school, Doug said that they went to 233 of their sons games during one year when Travis and Chase were in high school.
Our friend Richard Chapman in the DU Communications Department wrote a great story about the Hallam family. You can find it here.
Worth Repeating (from last year's North Texas blog): North Texas really has a way with names. That includes the Mean Green.
As I've heard it, North Texas has always used a screaming eagle as the school's mascot (if you go to www.meangreensports.com you can hear the scream of the eagle - I don't recommend doing so at work), but at some point after Mean Joe Greene graduated from North Texas in 1969 and headed to the Steel Curtain in Pittsburgh, the school renamed its teams. As a side note, according to Wikipedia (which everyone knows is the foremost reference point when checking accuracy), there was a movement a few years ago to add the albino squirrel as a second mascot. I cannot be the only one in favor of the school adopting the albino squirrel. However, the web gurus might have trouble adding the scream of the albino squirrel to the website.
Here are a few more famous names that graduated from North Texas: Norah Jones, Pat Boone, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Roy Orbison, Dr. Phil and "Stone Cold" Steve Austin.
The New Stuff: While browsing the Mean Green Athletic Hall of Fame, one of the plaques jumped out.
College Football Hall of Fame coach Hayden Fry was the coach and athletic director at North Texas (then North Texas State) from 1973-78, when his teams compiled a 40-23-3 record, before he took over at the University of Iowa.
And a few impressive alumni not previously mentioned: singers Don Henley (The Eagles) and Meat Loaf, actors Thomas Haden Church (Wings, Spiderman 3 and Sideways) and Peter Weller (Robocop and 24), and former Majority Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives Dick Armey.
Never Gets Old: When we landed in Nashville on Wednesday, a woman walked up to associate head coach Mike McKee and asked if he was the coach of the team, he told her he was one of them.
Her reply was one that we hear often and probably take for granted: "Your players are the nicest guys. They were all polite throughout the flight, and a few of them in the back entertained a child the entire time."
McKee thanked her. It's always nice to hear, regardless of the fact that we hear similar things often.
Yearly travel totals:
Total Flights - 15
Total Mileage Flown - 10,971
Total Bus Miles - 1,487
Total Number of Hotels - 11
Total Number of Different Airports - 12
Total Number of Airline Delays - 1
Total Number of Cancelled Flights - 0
Total Number of Bags Lost This Year - 1
Total Number of Times DU Has Encountered Snow on Sun Belt Road Trips - 2
The Denton area got nearly a foot of snow in the past few days. Fortunately, it's been warm enough that it's been melting, although that seems to be making a slushy mess on the roads and sidewalks. The city seems to be running as normal, as opposed to a certain town in northeast Arkansas a few weeks ago.
The team stayed at the hotel in Murfreesboro after the game on Thursday night, something that does not often happen often after games. After a quick breakfast in the lobby at around 7:30 a.m. on Friday, the team headed to the Nashville airport for a flight to Dallas/Fort Worth and a short drive north to Denton.
In the last blog, we mentioned that the Murphy Center was only 36.1 miles from the Nashville airport. The Super Pit in Denton is 35.0 miles from DFW, just 0.6 miles farther than the Ritchie Center is from DIA.
Both Denver and North Texas arrived at DFW at roughly the same time, as UNT had played at New Orleans on Thursday night.
After a quick lunch in the hotel lobby, the players had a few hours to relax before practice at the Super Pit at 6 p.m. The team then went to Texas Roadhouse, which of course was founded in Clarksville, Ind., and has become legendary, according to the back of the menu.
Aside from freshman Blake Foeman, who has been suffering from food poisoning during the trip, everyone appears to be in high spirits and ready for tonight's game.
Watch Out for Skeeters: Brothers Travis Hallam and Chase Hallam are making a sort of homecoming at Saturday's game. The Hallams grew up in Mesquite, Texas, home of the Mesquite High School Skeeters, which is just over 50 miles southeast of Denton.
According to Travis and Chase, they have already lined up tickets for several family and friends, and dozens of others have told them that they'll be making the trip. In all, they expect in the neighborhood of 100 people at the Super Pit cheering for them, which is especially nice in enemy territory.
Among those, of course, will be their father, Doug, and mother, Debbie, who have traveled from Mesquite to nearly every game this season. The have said that it's easier for them now that their sons both are playing for Denver, even if "home" games 700 miles from their home, which is why they expect to miss no more than 3-4 games this season (they have or will watch them on television or Pioneer Vision, of course).
When the boys were in high school, Doug said that they went to 233 of their sons games during one year when Travis and Chase were in high school.
Our friend Richard Chapman in the DU Communications Department wrote a great story about the Hallam family. You can find it here.
Worth Repeating (from last year's North Texas blog): North Texas really has a way with names. That includes the Mean Green.
As I've heard it, North Texas has always used a screaming eagle as the school's mascot (if you go to www.meangreensports.com you can hear the scream of the eagle - I don't recommend doing so at work), but at some point after Mean Joe Greene graduated from North Texas in 1969 and headed to the Steel Curtain in Pittsburgh, the school renamed its teams. As a side note, according to Wikipedia (which everyone knows is the foremost reference point when checking accuracy), there was a movement a few years ago to add the albino squirrel as a second mascot. I cannot be the only one in favor of the school adopting the albino squirrel. However, the web gurus might have trouble adding the scream of the albino squirrel to the website.
Here are a few more famous names that graduated from North Texas: Norah Jones, Pat Boone, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Roy Orbison, Dr. Phil and "Stone Cold" Steve Austin.
The New Stuff: While browsing the Mean Green Athletic Hall of Fame, one of the plaques jumped out.
College Football Hall of Fame coach Hayden Fry was the coach and athletic director at North Texas (then North Texas State) from 1973-78, when his teams compiled a 40-23-3 record, before he took over at the University of Iowa.
And a few impressive alumni not previously mentioned: singers Don Henley (The Eagles) and Meat Loaf, actors Thomas Haden Church (Wings, Spiderman 3 and Sideways) and Peter Weller (Robocop and 24), and former Majority Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives Dick Armey.
Never Gets Old: When we landed in Nashville on Wednesday, a woman walked up to associate head coach Mike McKee and asked if he was the coach of the team, he told her he was one of them.
Her reply was one that we hear often and probably take for granted: "Your players are the nicest guys. They were all polite throughout the flight, and a few of them in the back entertained a child the entire time."
McKee thanked her. It's always nice to hear, regardless of the fact that we hear similar things often.
Yearly travel totals:
Total Flights - 15
Total Mileage Flown - 10,971
Total Bus Miles - 1,487
Total Number of Hotels - 11
Total Number of Different Airports - 12
Total Number of Airline Delays - 1
Total Number of Cancelled Flights - 0
Total Number of Bags Lost This Year - 1
Total Number of Times DU Has Encountered Snow on Sun Belt Road Trips - 2
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Middle Tennessee - 2/11/10
MURFREESBORO, Tenn. - Another week and the Pioneers are back on the road.
This one is a little different in that the team will play at Middle Tennessee
and North Texas, which means a flight between games, instead of a short bus
ride.
The team arrived in Nashville last night around 7:30 p.m., went straight to the hotel and enjoyed a chicken sandwich in the hotel restaurant before heading to the rooms.
This is the first time most of these players have been to Murfreesboro, since we did not play here last year. The ones that had been here before realized that this hotel is a nice upgrade from the previous one, which was not bad but did seem to be going through some sort of renovations every time we stayed there.
Murfreesboro is one of those towns that tends to prompt people to question how hard it is to get to these places in the Sun Belt Conference. However, the 'Boro is just 36.1 miles down the highway from Nashville. By comparison, the Ritchie Center is 34.4 miles from DIA.
Civil War historians might recognize Murfreesboro as the site of Stones River National Battlefield, which is about a mile from the team hotel.
As for the school, the sign out front says Middle Tennessee State University (or MTSU), but the fine people here prefer if it's referred to as just Middle Tennessee. According to the media guide, "Middle Tennessee is a destination school of undergraduates from the state of Tennessee." It being so close to Music City, MTSU includes a Department of Recording Industry, which is the university's most popular program.
Some of the more notable alumni include former U.S. Senator Al Gore Sr., Evanescence lead singer Amy Lee and Ultimate Fighting Champion Shane Primm. Vice President Al Gore was a visiting professor at MTSU.
Baseball fans in Denver might also recognize MTSU baseball standout Claude "Jayhawk" Owens, who was drafted by the Colorado Rockies in the 1992 MLB Expansion Draft and was a member of the inaugural Rockies team.
The Gateway: As the team bus rolled into DIA yesterday afternoon, it pulled up to the gate for commercial vehicles. The driver's card did not work, so the driver threw the bus in reverse, backed up about 20-30 feet and cut hard to the left to head to the upper level.
The reason this was notable was because it sparked a discussion about whether or not the team had made it through that gate yet this year. For at least four-straight road trips, the bus has had to perform that exact routine each time we arrive at DIA. Most of us could not remember a time this year when it worked, as planned.
Needless to say, it's not a problem for anyone on the team, especially since getting dropped off right outside the ticket counter is actually easier.
It did result in more than a couple smiles on the bus, nonetheless.
Update: In the last blog, we discussed a bus that caught fire on the way from Jonesboro, Ark., to Memphis, Tenn. As helpful reader (and assistant coach riding the bus at the time) Todd Rinehart pointed out, that memorable ride occurred in 2001, not 2004 as reported. It followed a 90-75 Denver victory.
According to Rinehart, everything else in the story was completely accurate, including Hyder grabbing the slab of ribs, while everyone else reached for their personal effects.
Yearly travel totals:
Total Flights - 14
Total Mileage Flown - 10,340
Total Bus Miles - 1,403
Total Number of Hotels - 10
Total Number of Different Airports - 12
Total Number of Airline Delays - 1
Total Number of Cancelled Flights - 0
Total Number of Bags Lost This Year - 1
Total Number of Times the Team Bus Made It Through the DIA Gate This Season (estimated) - 0
The team arrived in Nashville last night around 7:30 p.m., went straight to the hotel and enjoyed a chicken sandwich in the hotel restaurant before heading to the rooms.
This is the first time most of these players have been to Murfreesboro, since we did not play here last year. The ones that had been here before realized that this hotel is a nice upgrade from the previous one, which was not bad but did seem to be going through some sort of renovations every time we stayed there.
Murfreesboro is one of those towns that tends to prompt people to question how hard it is to get to these places in the Sun Belt Conference. However, the 'Boro is just 36.1 miles down the highway from Nashville. By comparison, the Ritchie Center is 34.4 miles from DIA.
Civil War historians might recognize Murfreesboro as the site of Stones River National Battlefield, which is about a mile from the team hotel.
As for the school, the sign out front says Middle Tennessee State University (or MTSU), but the fine people here prefer if it's referred to as just Middle Tennessee. According to the media guide, "Middle Tennessee is a destination school of undergraduates from the state of Tennessee." It being so close to Music City, MTSU includes a Department of Recording Industry, which is the university's most popular program.
Some of the more notable alumni include former U.S. Senator Al Gore Sr., Evanescence lead singer Amy Lee and Ultimate Fighting Champion Shane Primm. Vice President Al Gore was a visiting professor at MTSU.
Baseball fans in Denver might also recognize MTSU baseball standout Claude "Jayhawk" Owens, who was drafted by the Colorado Rockies in the 1992 MLB Expansion Draft and was a member of the inaugural Rockies team.
The Gateway: As the team bus rolled into DIA yesterday afternoon, it pulled up to the gate for commercial vehicles. The driver's card did not work, so the driver threw the bus in reverse, backed up about 20-30 feet and cut hard to the left to head to the upper level.
The reason this was notable was because it sparked a discussion about whether or not the team had made it through that gate yet this year. For at least four-straight road trips, the bus has had to perform that exact routine each time we arrive at DIA. Most of us could not remember a time this year when it worked, as planned.
Needless to say, it's not a problem for anyone on the team, especially since getting dropped off right outside the ticket counter is actually easier.
It did result in more than a couple smiles on the bus, nonetheless.
Update: In the last blog, we discussed a bus that caught fire on the way from Jonesboro, Ark., to Memphis, Tenn. As helpful reader (and assistant coach riding the bus at the time) Todd Rinehart pointed out, that memorable ride occurred in 2001, not 2004 as reported. It followed a 90-75 Denver victory.
According to Rinehart, everything else in the story was completely accurate, including Hyder grabbing the slab of ribs, while everyone else reached for their personal effects.
Yearly travel totals:
Total Flights - 14
Total Mileage Flown - 10,340
Total Bus Miles - 1,403
Total Number of Hotels - 10
Total Number of Different Airports - 12
Total Number of Airline Delays - 1
Total Number of Cancelled Flights - 0
Total Number of Bags Lost This Year - 1
Total Number of Times the Team Bus Made It Through the DIA Gate This Season (estimated) - 0
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