DENVER – The University of Denver men's basketball program returns home for back-to-back games to end week two of the season, starting with a visit from Colorado Christian on Thursday night at 7 p.m. MT.
SERIES HISTORY:
- Denver holds a 3-0 series lead since the Pioneers turned Division I in 1998-99.
- All three match-ups have been in Hamilton Gymnasium.
- Denver won last year's meeting 100-68 on November 22, 2023
- Dating back to the first ever meeting between the two schools in 1987-88, Denver is 19-6 against Colorado Christian, and is riding an 11-game winning streak.
LAST TIME OUT:
- Denver led Colorado State with under 10 minutes to go, but a late second-half run by the Rams separated the two and sent CSU on its way to a 74-65 win in Moby Arena on Tuesday night.
SPREADING THE SCORING
- Denver had six players score in double figures and no one score more than 15 in Denver's 97-80 win over Western Colorado on Nov. 8.
- DeAndre Craig led the Pios with 15, Pedro Lopez-Sanvicente scored 13, Sebastian Akins added 12 and Nicholas Shogbonyo, Isaiah Carr and Josh Lee all finished with 10.
- It was the first time Denver had 6 players in double figures since December 15, 2012 against Omaha.
- 12 years ago - Royce O'Neale had 17, Chase Hallam had 12, Chris Udofia scored 11, Brett Olson and Nate Engesser chipped in 11 and Cam Griffin scored 10.
- Last time out at Colorado State, all five starters had at least seven points.
DEFENDING THE HOME FLOOR
- Since turning Division I in 1999-00, the Pioneers are 45-32 in Hamilton Gymnasium.
- Denver has played in Hamilton full-time since the 2020-21 campaign.
- 2023-24 marked the first double-digit win season in Hamilton (10-4).
- In the fourth season under head coach Jeff Wulbrun, the Pioneers are 26-16 on their home floor.
WULBRUN'S FOURTH YEAR
- Head coach Jeff Wulbrun is in his fourth season in charge of the Denver men's basketball program in 2024-25.
- Wulbrun led the Pios to 11 wins in 2021-22, the most by the program since the 2017-18 season. The nine win improvement tied for the best in the program's Division I era.
- Denver earned 15 wins in 2022-23, winning eight of the first nine out of the gate, the best start to a season in the program's DI history.
- Denver had 17 wins last season and earned the program's first Summit League Tournament wins since 2018, and made the first conference final since 2005.
- Prior to joining the Pioneers, Wulbrun had nearly three decades of experience as an assistant coach at Stanford, UAB, Virginia Tech, Illinois State and Cal.
NEW, BUT EXPERIENCED ASSISTANTS
- Fourth-year HC Jeff Wulbrun has an entirely new staff this year.
- The five-member staff of Wulbrun, Bill Peterson, Shammond Williams, Curran Walsh and Director of Operations Jack Frost have combined 80 seasons in NCAA basketball and 24 seasons both playing and coaching in the NBA or the G-League.
- Peterson has been involved in college coaching for 32 seasons and spent 11 years on NBA and G-League staffs. Prior to joining Denver, Peterson had been on the staff of the national champion Baylor Bears from 2017 through the end of last season.
- Williams has coached in the NCAA for eight years, played four years at North Carolina that included three trips to the Final Four, and played professional basketball for 13 seasons, including stints with seven different NBA franchises. Walsh has been involved in college basketball circles for seven seasons, making stops at Utah, Utah State and Loyola Marymount before joining the DU staff.
- Frost served in three different roles spanning across five years at Stanford as the video coordinator, special assistant to the head coach and as an assistant coach.
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