DENVER—The university of Denver is making the most of its home-court advantage.
Getting 27 points from Nate Rohnert, Denver fended off New Orleans 75-66 Thursday night for its 10th straight home victory since a season-opening loss to Northern Iowa.
Brian Stafford had 15 points, and Rob Lewis and Sabatino Chen added 11 points apiece for Denver (11-5, 4-1 Sun Belt).
“We’ve made it a priority of ours, that we have to be really good at home,” said Denver coach Joe Scott. “It’s important in the development of a program that you do that. We’ve rattled off 10 in a row. It’s put us in a good position, and now we have to see where we go with that because the schedule is going to flip-flop on us and we’re going to be on the road a lot to finish the season.”
And that can be rough. Just ask New Orleans, which came to Denver with 11 straight conference road losses. Carl Blair and Charles Carmouche had 16 points each to lead the Privateers (6-10, 1-4), who dropped their 12th.
“Winning on the road is not easy,” New Orleans coach Joe Pasternack said. “Give them credit. Denver did an excellent job of executing their offense.”
New Orleans also was hurt by the loss of shooting guard Billy Humphrey, who entered as the conference’s second-leading scorer with an average of 18.3 points. He was limited to 3 points before being sidelined eight minutes into the game when he aggravated a knee injury. He was playing in his third game since returning from the injury, which had sidelined him for a pair of games last month.
“I’m not sure when he did it but he tweaked it and it really hurt him,” Pasternack said, adding that Humphrey would be re-evaluated by team medical staff to determine the severity of the injury. “It was like the roof caved in. He’s the heart and soul of our team.”
Denver was leading 36-24 when New Orleans’ Devin McDonald hit a 3-pointer, starting an 8-0 surge that pulled the Privateers to within four. But the Pioneers got a quick layup from Rohnert and Travis Hallam hit a 3-pointer to up Denver’s advantage to nine with 12:45 left to play.
New Orleans cut the deficit to 59-54 on a layup by Quincy Diggs, but Rohnert answered with a 3-pointer and New Orleans never got any closer the rest of the way.
“Tonight, every time we needed something big, he came through for us, whether it was a layup, a drive, a post move or a nice pass to somebody,” Scott said of Rohnert, one of only two seniors on Denver’s roster. “It’s good to see a senior do that because that’s part of building a program.”
Rohnert said Denver is blending its youth and experience well.
“We’re playing some good basketball right now but there’s definitely room for improvement,” Rohnert said. “We’re going to keep working to get better so we’re playing our best basketball toward the end of the season.”
The Pioneers led 29-21 at halftime, being selective but making 56 percent of their shots from the floor (9 of 16).
After Diggs hit a running jumper in the lane to put New Orleans up 15-12 with 9:20 remaining in the first half, Denver put together a 14-2 burst to go in front 26-17.
Stafford scored eight of his points during the spree, converting a three-point play and connecting on Denver’s only 3-pointer of the period. New Orleans endured a scoring drought of nearly five minutes during Denver’s burst to allow the Pioneers to pull ahead.
