SPRINGFIELD, Ohio (January 17, 2022) – The Denison University men's basketball team played in its first road game of the 2022 Spring semester, and in the end, the Big Red came away with a 69-55 win inside Pam Evans Smith Arena at Wittenberg University on Monday evening.

Trailing 11-6 seven minutes into the game, Denison went on a 13-0 run to not only take its first lead of the game, but take a lead that it would never surrender.

That run started with a 3-pointer by John Faller assisted by Kevin Cheng, and then a deep 3-pointer by Cheng assisted by Freeman Brou gave the Big Red their first lead up 12-11 with 11:32 left in the half. Then after a nice layup by Darren Rubin assisted by Will Hunter on a baseline out-of-bounds play kept the run going, a stretch of five straight points by Hunter ended the run with Denison up by eight at 19-11 with nine minutes to go until halftime.

Then with the Tigers back to within one at 21-20, an 8-0 Big Red run gave them their largest lead of the first half up 29-20 with under five minutes left in the period. In all, it was a 23-9 run over eight-plus minutes for Denison at that point.

After starting the game 3-for-8 from the field, Denison ended the first half shooting 50 percent (15-30) overall. It was a balanced first 20 minutes for the Big Red, who had eight different players with at least one field goal.

After Denison equaled its largest lead of the game to that point up by nine at 46-37 after a layup by Faller with 13:27 left in the game, Brou found Dre Rodgers for a 3-pointer just over a minute later to put the Big Red up by 10 points at 51-41.

At the nine-minute mark in the game, Cheng got loose for a layup to give the Big Red their largest lead of the game to that point up by 12 at 55-43, and then in the final two minutes of the game, Cheng hit a short jumper to again give Denison is largest lead to that point up 13 at 65-52.

The Big Red outscored the Tigers in every way, including 48-28 in the paint, 39-17 in bench points, 17-15 in points off turnovers, 10-2 in second chance points, and 8-0 in fastbreak points.

Hunter tied his season-high with 14 points and added seven rebounds and three assists to lead a trio of Big Red players in double figures in scoring.

Faller tied his career-high with 13 points and Brou had 12 points, a team-high eight rebounds and two steals. Cheng followed with nine points and a season-best five boards while Ricky Radtke had eight points and Tyler Miller added six points and four rebounds. Last but not least, Rodgers tied his career-bests in both points (5) and in rebounds (3).

With its fifth straight conference win, Denison improves to .500 overall for the first time on the season at 6-6, and is now 5-1 in the North Coast Athletic Conference. It was also the second win in a row for Head Coach Chris Sullivan at his alma mater, which fell to 5-7 and 3-3 and has now lost four of its last five games.

In two days, Denison will return to Livingston Gymnasium where it has won three games in a row as the Big Red host the College of Wooster at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, January 19.