A year ago, Denver men’s basketball coach Terry Carroll had to rebuild his front line. This season, it’s the backcourt.
Center Yemi Nicholson has evolved into the Sun Belt Conference’s best player, and forwards Andrew Carpenter and Antonio Porch were solid as first-time starters last season. Six other players return from a team that went 20-11, 12-3 in the conference and advanced to its first Division I postseason game in 46 years.
The guard spots are the big concerns as DU opens defense of its Sun Belt West Division crown. Point man Rodney Billups (418 career assists) and Erik Benzel (the Sun Belt’s all-time 3-point field-goal leader) were last season’s only seniors.
“We have to question and wonder how quickly our guards are going to mature and gain the experience to play at this level,” Carroll said. “The quicker they can do that, the better we’ll be.”
Carroll signed junior college guards to fill his backcourt in 6-foot-2 point Alex Cox (Daytona Beach, Fla.) and 6-6 DaShawn Walker, from Indian Hills (Iowa).
“We think we’re going to have a really good backcourt, even though we did lose two seniors that we thought were irreplaceable,” backup senior center Terrence Gordon said.
Footnotes
DU women’s coach Pam Tanner lost three starting point guards to injury last season en route to a 6-22 season. “My staff and my team are tired of character building and are ready to move on and win basketball games,” said Tanner, who has just one senior, forward Venice Adams. She said Adams, junior Tyesha Lowery and sophomore Brooke Meyer have provided “better leadership in the last six months than we’ve had in the last four years.” … DU hosts exhibition games Thursday night against Adams State (men) and Metro State (women).
Mike Chambers can be reached at 303-820-5453 or mchambers@denverpost.com.
