Box Score DENVER - University of Denver junior forward Chris Udofia (Irving, Texas) scored 21 points and dished out five assists, leading the Pioneers to their ninth-straight win with an 84-55 rout over Texas-Arlington at Magness Arena on Thursday evening.
Denver (20-8, 15-2 WAC), which has gone 16-1 since New Year's Eve, will play Louisiana Tech at home Saturday evening with a shot to win a share of the WAC regular season championship.
"You can't control what another team does, but every game that we've played has been critical to give us a shot to win the conference championship, and I think our guys have done a great job during this stretch of concentrating on us," said head coach Joe Scott, who won his 100th game with the Pioneers. "I think you've got to give our guys a lot of credit for starting 0-1 in this league and being where we are at right now, in a position to win a conference championship. It's important for our program to learn be at the top of the league. We've come home with three tough tests, and we're looking to ace them. We've done the first two, and know we have the final one (Louisiana Tech) coming in here on Saturday."
Sophomore guard Brett Olson (Highlands Ranch, Colo.) finished with 18 points, five assists and a career-high three blocked shots. Freshman Jalen Love (Wichita, Kan.) added 12 points and a career-best five steals, and sophomore Royce O'Neale (Killeen, Texas) added 10 points, seven rebounds, five assists and three steals for Denver.
Denver shot 59.6 percent (28-for-47) from the field and 55.0 percent (11-for-20) from beyond the arc against a UTA (17-11, 11-6 WAC) team that entered the game with the WAC lead in field goal defense. The Pioneers held UT Arlington to 40.9 percent (18-for-44) from the field and outscored the Mavericks 40-9 in points off turnovers.
"I thought we did a great job with the scouting report tonight, in terms of when they drove in certain situations, we were able to cause some turnovers," Scott said. "We did a great job of getting points off those turnovers."
In the game, the Pioneers had 10 different players score, had 26 assists on 28 made field goals, forced 22 UTA turnovers and registered 14 steals.
After UTA took a brief 2-1 lead 34 seconds into the game, the Crimson and Gold ripped off an 18-3 run, forced 13 UTA first half turnovers, and stretched the lead to 43-24 at halftime. The Pioneers were able to put the Mavericks away by opening the second half with a 13-2 run that extended their lead to 56-26 with 16:12 remaining.
The Mavericks were led by Karol Gruszecki's 16 points, and Drew Charles scored 12 points.
Denver hosts Louisiana Tech Saturday at 5 p.m. MT in their final regular season game of the year, which will be for a share of the WAC regular season conference championship. Saturday's matchup will air live on ROOT Sports. Fans are encouraged to arrive early at the Ritchie Center as the game is expected to be a near sellout.
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