DENVER—Denver put an end to its bad start by extending what has been a rough start for Alcorn State.
Brian Stafford scored 20 points and Denver beat winless Alcorn State 69-51 Wednesday night for its first victory of the season.
“It’s good to finally get that win. It’s a little bit of getting that monkey off our back,” said Stafford, who led the Pionners in scoring for the fourth time in five games.
Chase Hallam had 16 points and his brother, Travis, added 12 for the Pioneers (1-4), who outshot Alcorn State 46 percent to 35.6 percent.
Marquiz Baker scored a game-high 29 for the Braves (0-5), who are halfway through a tough season-opening 10 game road trip. Alcorn State doesn’t play its first home game until Jan. 4.
“We’ve got a really young roster,” Alcorn State coach Larry Smith said. “The kids are trying to find themselves and being on the road this long, one thing I hope is, it builds character because we know it’s going to be tough for us.”
Up by 13 points at halftime, the Pioneers leaned on their perimeter shooting to stretch their lead. Justin Coughlin opened the second half by connecting on a 3-pointer, and Stafford hit another 3 with 14:19 remaining to give Denver a 45-25 lead with 14:19 left to play.
Alcorn State managed to get within 51-36 on successive 3-pointers by Baker but couldn’t sustain the momentum and Denver pulled away again, opening up a 17-point advantage on Stafford’s goal-tended layup with just over four minutes left to play.
The Braves hung around for much of the game thanks to Baker, who connected on seven 3s.
“He found his niche,” Smith said. “We know we can go to him and he can make buckets for us. I was glad to see him have a really good game.”
Denver outscored Alcorn State 14-4 over the last seven minutes of the first half to take a 32-19 lead at the break.
