The past few weeks haven’t exactly been easy for the Denver men’s basketball team.

The Pioneers spent 10 out of 14 days on the road near the end of January, lost three games in a row to close out the month and in the middle of it all, had one of their teammates — Coban Porter, the 21-year-old younger brother of Nuggets star Michael Porter Jr. — arrested following an early morning car crash on Jan. 22 that killed 42-year-old Katharina Rothman.

“Our hearts and prayers go out to the deceased, to everyone who was involved in the incident, to their friends and to their families,” Pioneers coach Jeff Wulbrun told The Denver Gazette. “My concern has been the health and welfare of my team moving forward. I really appreciate all the resources that DU has afforded our team and the entire DU athletic community.”

Those comments were Wulburn’s first on the incident regarding Porter, who was formally charged with felony counts of vehicular homicide and vehicular assault this week, and he did not comment further.

Wulbrun’s team was finally back in action at Hamilton Gymnasium in their first home game since Jan. 14.

The Pioneers certainly looked like a team that’s happy to be back home and to have five of their last seven games in their home gym.

DU rolled to its most dominant win of the season, a 74-44 victory over one of the top teams in the Summit League in Western Illinois.

“There are ebbs and flows in a season,” Wulbrun said. “It’s a grind, it’s a marathon. You have to weather the times of adversity. Our players have dealt with it very well. Tremendous resilience.”

Junior guard Tommy Bruner led the way with 18 points and looks like a First Team All-Summit League player in just his first year with the program after transferring in from Jacksonville in the offseason.

“What you saw today is what we did the last two days in practice,” Bruner told The Denver Gazette. “For us to come out and execute, it didn’t surprise me, but I’m just glad we could take that step forward.”

After an 8-1 start that was one of the best in program history, DU was just 4-11 in its last 15 games heading into Thursday night.

For teams like the Pioneers, they know their season rests on how well they do at next month’s conference tournament. It’s their one chance to punch a ticket to the big dance. They looked like a team capable of doing that early on, but haven’t since — until Thursday.

“Going into the last month before the playoffs, I just told the guys, ‘It’s a new season. We’re 0-0. Let’s just go out and give it everything we got.’ We’re 1-0 now, so I’ll take it,” Bruner said.