Off Broadway can be good.
Coach Brannon Hays makes that point about his Metro State men’s basketball team, which plays its home games across the street from the Pepsi Center.
The Roadrunners don’t play in the area’s basketball Broadway, but they’re 25-3 with their home base just across the street from the Nuggets’ home. Their colossal season continues today when they play Colorado State-Pueblo in the semifinals of the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference’s Shootout in Pueblo. The Roadrunners beat Colorado-Colorado Springs in the quarterfinals.
“We’re playing in a tough market,” Hays said. “There are a lot of pro teams and a lot of good college teams. But we think we have a good product.”
The record backs Hays up. The Roadrunners take a 17-game winning streak into the semifinals, and they are ranked second in the Central Region’s poll. Before missing the NCAA Division II Tournament last year, Metro State had made the postseason 10 consecutive seasons, winning national championships in 2000 and 2002. The Roadrunners entered the season with the best record this decade among Division II teams — 242-55, an .815 winning percentage.
Hays, a former Metro State assistant, is trying to lead the Roadrunners to a comeback of sorts in his second season as the head coach.
“You’re creating a new tradition in a sense every year because you have to get a new group of players to buy into the program,” Hays said. “You’re redefining your tradition every year. Last year we lost some games and started putting pressure on ourselves. We had to learn again what Metro State basketball is all about.”
Hays was an assistant on Mike Dunlap’s staff from 1998-2000 and again in 2005-06. In between, he was the head coach at Colorado Christian. When Dunlap resigned before last season to take an assistant coaching job with the Nuggets, Hays moved up.
The Roadrunners are an international team, with players from Australia and from cities throughout the U.S.
Jesse Wagstaff of Canberra, Australia, leads the team in scoring (17.6 points) and rebounding (7.7) and is the RMAC’s player of the year. Marquise Carrington of Philadelphia is second on the team in scoring (14.0) and was selected first team all-conference.
“It’s a privilege to be named player of the year, but unfortunately it doesn’t mean anything in the postseason,” the 6-foot-8 Wagstaff said.
Carrington came west when introduced to Dunlap by a mutual friend.
“We had a little down year last year,” Carrington said, “but everybody on our schedule remembers our tradition and they bring their A-game when they play us.”
Irv Moss: 303-954-1296 or imoss@denverpost.com
