Metropolitan State University of Denver (Colo.) is a commuter school that lacks on-campus housing. Most of the older students attend class during the day and work in the evening. Attendance at athletic events is hard to come by.

That’s why men’s basketball coach Derrick Clark only recruits players that can look past the quirky campus dynamic and focus solely on winning.

“They have to have a hunger just to sacrifice a lot of things in the name of getting better,” Clark said. “If they have that mindset, then I believe we’re going to get a gym-rat kind of kid that’s obsessive about getting better.”

And he can often find exactly what he needs on the other side of the Pacific Ocean.

Nicholas Kay, Mitch McCarron, Will Sinclair, Harrison Goodrick and Obi Kyei all hail from Australia and all of them have helped the No. 3 Roadrunners (16-1) maintain their status as a Division II championship contender this season.

Thanks to a roughly 8,000-mile-long recruiting pipeline established by former Metro State and Charlotte Bobcats head coach Mike Dunlap, the team has featured a number of Australian-born players over the past two decades. The connection has produced two national titles in 2000 and 2002, and the latest posse of Aussies is hoping to bring a third title back to Denver.

“We all get along, but the five of us definitely understand one another and get each other’s sense of humor,” McCarron said. “Obviously, we all want to win, too.”

That desire, more than anything, has made the Mile High City an enticing destination.

The tradition of winning at Metro State started with Dunlap, who spent three seasons as the head coach of the Adelaide 36ers in the National Basketball League in Australia before taking over the program in 1997.

Clark, who played under Dunlap at California Lutheran University, also joined the team as an assistant coach following his own stint in Australia, where he was an all-star for the Shepparton Gators.

“That helped my network a bit, but it all started with Mike Dunlap,” Clark said of the school’s recruiting trail. “He brought a number of players over long before I got the head coaching job at Metro State.”

The pairing proved to be a winning combination. In eight seasons together, Dunlap and Clark won 227 games and the two aforementioned championships. At the heart of this success was Dunlap’s ability to sell the program to young players overseas.

So when Clark returned to lead the Roadrunners in 2010 after stops at Air Force and Colorado, he knew he could immediately pick up where Dunlap had left off four years prior.

“It’s the same as if we’re recruiting kids from California,” Clark said. “Word spreads to what our program is, and we have plenty of past graduates still over there in Australia to get our message across.”

The process is so reliable that Clark doesn’t even have to see his players before they arrive in the United States, as was the case with Kay and McCarron.

The two juniors first heard about Metro State through Damian Cotter, the coach of the Australian U-19 team. Cotter told them about the school’s basketball prestige and recruiting history.

But it was Clark’s blunt honesty that convinced them to head to Colorado.

“He said we don’t get a lot of crazy crowds, but that it’s a nice place and I think you’d enjoy it,” McCarron said. “ I didn’t know much about Denver, but I appreciated his honesty and trusted him.”

Now, they’re showing it both on and off the court.

Kay and McCarron average a combined 30.5 points per contest, and Sinclair is one of the team’s leading rebounders. Goodrick and Kyei, both freshmen, have played in every game this season off the bench.

Their chemistry away from the hardwood is just as potent, and the quintet is trying to push the Roadrunners one step closer than last season.

The Roadrunners came up one point short against Drury University in the national final. Although the loss was devastating, Clark said he’s not afraid to bring it up at the opportune time to motivate his team.

So far, his tactic has worked. Metro State is currently undefeated in its conference and collected three victories over D-I competition in the NIT Season Tip-Off tournament.

But the goal for Kay and his fellow countrymen remains closing out the season on top.

That way, more people will begin to think of Metro State as a basketball school rather than a commuter school.

“We’ve got a great bunch of guys this year,” Kay said. “We’ve shown how well we can play, and hopefully we can show that we’re ready for games coming up and the tournament.”

Published on January 29, 2014 at 1:24 am

Contact Tyler: tfpiccot@syr.edu