GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (November 11, 2023) – In what was the first-ever meeting between the two squads, the Denison University men's basketball team suffered its first loss of the season with a competitive 75-64 defeat at the hands of No. 10 nationally-ranked Calvin University on Saturday inside Van Noord Arena.
Calvin (1-0 overall) was not ranked in last year's preseason poll, but reached as high as No. 11 in the nation on two separate occasions on the way to a 22-5 season. The Knights also went 13-1 in MIAA play on the way to their first regular season conference championship since 2015 and return four starters and nine of their top-ten players from last year in minutes played per game, led by 2022-23 D3hoops.com National Rookie of the Year Jalen Overway. The sophomore center was also named an NABC Third Team All-American after averaging 18.6 points and 9.9 rebounds per game as a freshman last season.
On Saturday against the Big Red, Overway shot 9-for-13 from the field and led all players with 24 points.
For Denison (1-1),
Nick Heath shot 5-for-6 from three to lead the way with 17 points off the bench while
Ricky Radtke scored 13 points on 5-for-8 shooting from the field.
Kellon Smith and
Emmett Burnside both added eight points while Burnside led the Big Red in assists for the second game in a row with five and also added a team-best five rebounds.
Denison shot 40 percent from the field in both halves, got at least one 3-point make from six different players, and sank 11 3-pointers (11-for-29; 37.9 percent) as a team, but Calvin shot a whopping 63.64 percent (14-for-22) from the field in the second half to hold on with the wire-to-wire win.
Another big positive for the Big Red was their ability to take care of the basketball as they committed only seven turnovers while coming up with six steals on 14 turnovers by the Knights.
Lastly, Denison outscored Calvin 41-18 on bench points as all five Big Red players coming off the bench on Saturday got into the scoring column.
Next week will see the Big Red play at Capital University at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, November 16, before heading home for their first game of the season inside Livington Gymnasium against No. 13-ranked Case Western Reserve University at 2 p.m. on Saturday, November 18.
