A few months ago, Southwest had a 50% off sale and I nabbed flights to Denver for the family for the holiday season. After a sports-free week in the Rockies and Wyoming, we returned to the Mile High City on New Year's Eve, where the Denver Pioneers basketball team had an afternoon game. Fellow sports traveler Matt joined me and my daughter for this one and we met up at the Pioneer Bar a few blocks away to watch the end of the early NFL games. I then drove and found parking on York Street, just behind the Ritchie Center.
The basketball Pioneers play out of Hamilton Gymnasium, one of three venues inside the Ritchie Center. I visited here last year for their hockey team and posted on the memorabilia in the venue and will not rehash that here. I will say that one advantage of the afternoon game is that I was able to take a picture of the venue in daylight, as well as the large poster below.
The basketball team played at Magness Arena until 2020, when they returned to the much more intimate gym on the other side of the building. Its capacity is just 2,000, 5,200 less than the hockey rink and this is supposed to result in a better home-court advantage for the Pioneers, who average well under a thousand, a big drop from the 5,460 they saw a decade ago. On this day, with the Broncos playing at the same time, 752 made the trek. The box office is in the lobby and tickets were $22 for chairbacks and $15 for bleachers and we chose the latter, sitting away from everyone so my daughter had a bit of space. The concession stand is outside the gym, so you could probably sneak in if you had your hands full of hot dogs and popcorn. But they do give a hard ticket here, and that is reason enough to buy one.
When you enter the gym, you are on a balcony directly above one of the nets. So much so that you cannot take a picture of the whole court as the net support blocks the view (above), though you can see the Rocky Mountains and Denver skyline on the right side. The picture below shows the balcony. What is interesting is that you can watch the game from here and it does provide some unique angles, which you will see in the game photos below.
There are a few banners on the façade below the balcony, though the Pioneers have not had much success, without no appearances in the NCAA tournament. They have three NIT appearances and one win, over Ohio in 2013. Needless to say, hockey dominates here.
Both sides have the same setup, with the first three rows bleachers before eight rows of chairbacks in the middle two sections and then another eight rows of bleachers (though they are individual plastic seats). There are no end zone seats other than a row of courtside chairs ($65). There also is no pep band, which seems to be the situation here, and there were no cheerleaders or dance team either, though I am not sure that was due to the winter break or a regular occurrence.
The floor is quite attractive with its brown and red inside the arc, the large Denver logo at center court, and the aforementioned mountains and skyline.
The Pioneers appropriately play in the Summit League and the logos of the nine schools are displayed on both sides of the gym.
There is a large scoreboard at the far end that keeps detailed player and team stats as well as a small videoboard that takes up the left third or so.
And that is about it. Hamilton Gymnasium is a very simple venue that I appreciated for its space and interesting angles. If you enjoy seeing basketball from up close, a trip to Hamilton Gymnasium will give you just that. And you might get a game as exciting as we did.
The Game
The Oral Roberts Golden Eagles were visiting from Tulsa in the second conference game for both teams, with Denver having beaten Omaha while ORU had lost to UMKC. The Pioneers were wearing their home greys, something you don't see very often.
Denver took a quick 14-6 lead, but Oral Roberts got 11 of the next 13 points, capped by a trey from Isaac McBride. That was the first of five lead changes and two ties over the next ten minutes, but the Golden Eagles ended the half on a 9-2 run to lead 39-32. There were "only" 17 three-point attempts combined in the half, which meant a lot of interior play and plenty of fouls too. Denver's Touko Tainamo (#25 above), a 6'9 Finn whose name rhymes with Dynamo, was the beneficiary of many misses, grabbing 12 rebounds, including an incredible 9 off the offensive glass.
Oral Roberts started the second half on another 9-2 run to make it 48-34 at the under-16 timeout. But Pioneer Tommy Brunner scored eight straight Pioneer points and Tainamo added a layup as the home side got back within six. The two continued to work together with Jaxon Brenchley to chip away and eventually they tied the game at 62.
ORU again took the lead and again the Pioneers fought back as a Bruner trey gave them a 71-69 advantage with less than a minute to go. But Brenchley fouled McBride on a made bucket and the Eagle sank the free throw to go up by a point. Bruner was fouled on Denver's next possession and missed the first freebie, sinking the second to knot the game at 71. Oral Roberts could not execute on the final play of regulation (below) and we had bonus basketball.
Sir Isaac Herron (yep, that's his name, he should play for the UCF Knights) started overtime with a dunk and Jalen Miller followed with a three-pointer to put ORU up, only for Denver to once again claw back. A Brenchley layup tied the game at 81 with 1:19 to go. After a timeout, Kareem Thompson hit an improbable three from the corner to give ORU yet another lead. Bruner tried a three for Denver and missed and suddenly the Pioneers had to foul. At this point, I moved over to the balcony to take some shots from directly above the floor.
The Golden Eagles made 5 of their final 6 from the charity stripe and only a last-second bomb from Brenchley got Denver back within three. This was a thrilling game that saw ten lead changes and eight ties and was decided in the final minute. The scoreboard shot includes the team stats and you can see that both teams were rather poor from the free throw line.
Both teams finished with the same rebound line (12 offensive, 35 defensive) with Tainamo notching 20 for the Pioneers. Bruner scored 32 in 42 minutes in the loss, while McBride paced the Golden Eagles with 23. A great game to end the year, especially after all the mismatches I witnessed in November.
Notes
I don't usually post selfies, but to celebrate the end of 2023, here's one with my daughter and Matt.
This was my 72nd new venue in 2023, one less than I saw in 2022. That is about one every five days, a pace that I would like to keep up, though I am running out of places to see. Still, 2024 looks to be filled with more trips, including the newest Club 124 venue as the Clippers open the Intuit Dome. As always, I will be updating here, so please follow along. Happy 2024 everyone!
Best,
Sean
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