Under the Radar Game of the Day – Tuesday, December 2

Denver at Wyoming, 9:00 PM Eastern, ROOT Sports/themw.com

The UTR Game of the Day heads to Laramie, Wyoming tonight — one of the toughest places in the country for a visiting team to play.  The Cowboys will be hosting Joe Scott’s Denver Pioneers, a team that has, for the past few years, significantly underachieved.  The Pioneers will be looking for a road win to try to get their season headed in the right direction.

While teams from the Mountain West tend not be true Under the Radar teams, we do occasionally focus on them, especially those in the middle and lower portions of the conference standings that are not getting national attention.  Wyoming is out to a perfect 6-0 start on the season, including a 56-33 home drubbing of Colorado and a three point home win over WAC favorite New Mexico State.  The Cowboys have not, however, left Laramie yet this season.  A trip Friday night to SMU will change that, and could put them on the national radar if they sweep their two games this week.

Denver, two years ago, was a team we thought would win the WAC’s tournament bid.  While the Pioneers ran through the conference regular season at 16-2, they turned around and got upset in their first game in the WAC tournament.  Last season, Denver moved to the Summit League and, at least in the preseason, looked like a team that would challenge North Dakota State for the conference title and maybe even be in contention for an at-large bid.  Instead, they went 16-15 overall, 8-6 in conference, and ended their season with an 83-48 loss to North Dakota State in the Summit League tournament.

For these reasons, despite looking like a contender for the conference title this season, it is tough to actually pick the Pioneers to finish at the top of their league.  Denver is 3-2 so far on the season, having beaten three sub-250 teams at home while losing their only two road tests (at Belmont and at St. Mary’s).  With non-conference tests against Northern Iowa, Stanford and Colorado State still to come, the Pioneers will definitely have the chances to prove that last season was just a fluke.  And they will need to prove that they can win tough road games if they want to build the confidence to contend for a league title and an NCAA tournament bid.