UNC closes both halves strong for 83-75 win over Denver
Bears move to 3-1 on the season
It wasn’t always pretty, but the University of Northern Colorado men’s basketball team bounced back from a big loss with a solid win.
While UNC got of f to slow star ts in both the first and second half Wednesday night, the Bears ultimately did enough to defeat the University of Denver 83-75. Nor thern Colorado outscored DU by a combined 59-34 over the final 10 minutes of each half to pull out the 8-point victor y.
Daylen Kountz (26), Bodie Hume (21) and Matt Johnson II (21) combined for 68 points in the game. The Bears trailed by as many as 13, but ultimately came out on top.
“We started 0-for-5 (on free
throws) and that was par t of (the slow start),” said head coach Steve Smiley. “I was sitting there like, ‘we can’t make a free throw with good players?’ But we settled in. We got to the line 37 times so we did a nice job with that. We made enough key free throws at the end to keep (Denver) far enough away.”
Hume and Kountz stepped up big in the last 10 minutes of the first half as they combined for 26 points during that stretch. They went on a 9-0 run by themselves late in the first half to give UNC their first lead of the game.
Denver started the second half as strongly as they started the first, but a 7-0 run put the Bears up 65-57 with 5:03 remaining and they never looked back en route to the win.
In addition to his 21 points, Hume contributed 9 rebounds, 3 blocks, and 2 assists.
Next, the Bears will wrap up an absolutely grueling stretch that saw them play five games in 10 days. The Bears will travel to play Utah State on Friday night at 7 p.m. The game was a late addition to the schedule after UNC got a delayed start to the season due to COVID-19 issues. After Friday, the Bears will finally get a bit of rest as they won’t play again until Tuesday when they host Idaho State at 2 p.m.