Colorado Mesa will host a pair of schools from the Front Range this weekend in Brownson Arena. The Mavericks will host Colorado School of Mines on Friday evening at 5:30pm before hosting the Regis Rangers on Saturday at 5:30pm.
 
WEEKEND ROUNDUP
The Mavericks dropped a tough matchup with MSU Denver 71-66 on Friday where they shot just 52 percent from the free-throw line. Colorado Mesa bounced back to defeat Colorado Christian 67-39 the next night, holding the Cougars to just a 24.1 field goal percentage in the game.
 
OFFENSIVE SPARK
This past weekend the Mavericks played without Daniella Turner and Natalie Bartle as they were both nursing injuries. Without the duo, Colorado Mesa was missing approximately 30.5 points per game as both average around the 15-point mark. Someone needed to step-up and pick up some of those points.
 
A trio did that on Friday night with Savannah Domgaard leading the way as she poured in a career-high 21 points. Sophie Hadad, who made her first career start, scored a career-high 11 points while Val Desreumaux also had a career-high six points.
 
The Mavericks were back to a more balanced attack on Saturday as Kelsey Siemons led the way with 17 points and 11 rebounds with teammate Kylyn Rigsby also picking up a double double with 13 points and 10 rebounds.
 
FACING OFF WITH AN ALUM
The Colorado Mesa women's basketball team will be squaring off with one of their alums on Friday. Former Maverick Brittany Simpson (formerly Rowley) is the head coach at Colorado School of Mines and has established herself as the best coach at Mines. Simpson is in her ninth season as the head coach and has an all-time mark of 139-100 and on December 4 became the all-time wins leader in Oredigger women's basketball history.
 
Simpson is just 1-11 against her former team, picking up her lone win during the 2015-16 season.
 
Simpson played for the Mavericks from 2002-06 and has one of the highest career free-throw percentages in Maverick history. Her career free-throw percentage sits at 89.1 percent.
 
NATIONAL STATISTICS RANKINGS
Here is the updated list of where Colorado Mesa falls in the National Statistics Rankings.
 
Mavericks in the top-10 in National Rankings (National Rank)
Assist-to-Turnover Ratio: 1.41 (4)
Assists: 157 (7)
Blocked Shots: 40 (6)
Free Throw Attempts: 202 (8)
Rebounds: 410 (8)
Scoring Defense: 53.6 (9)
Scoring Margin: 19.2 (9)
Turnovers Per Game: 11.1 (2)
 
HISTORY AND SCOUTING THE OREDIGGERS
Colorado School of Mines enters with a record of 6-2 in conference matchups with having lost to just Western Colorado by six at home prior to the winter break and Black Hills State in overtime just a couple weeks ago in Spearfish.
 
Mines leads the conference and ranks sixth nationally in steals with 100.
 
Junior Denali Pinto leads the Orediggers in scoring at 13.9 points and is shooting over 38 percent from the field. She scored a season-high 22 points, five rebounds and five assists in a 75-63 win over Fort Lewis in the final game before the winter break on December 19.
 
HISTORY AND SCOUTING THE RANGERS
Regis enters the weekend with a 2-4 overall mark and 2-3 in conference matchups. In their four losses, they have fallen by an average of a little more than four points per game including a narrow 50-48 loss to Colorado School of Mines.
 
The Rangers are the top rebounding team in the conference in terms of margin rebounds per game, offensive rebounds per game and defensive rebounds per game. Whitney Jacob ranks 11^th nationally in rebounds per game at 11.8.
 
Jacob is not only their leading rebounder but also the leading scorer averaging 16.7 points per game. In their season opener, she had a season-high 23 points and 13 rebounds against MSU Denver. In the matchup with Colorado School of Mines, Jacob had a big time double-double with 19 points and 18 rebounds.
 
HEAD MAN
Head coach Taylor Wagner enters his ninth season as the head of the women's basketball program. He has led the program to five RMAC regular season championships and five NCAA South Central Region Tournaments. The Mavericks won the regional tournament in his first season (2012-13) sending the program to the NCAA Elite Eight for the first time.
 
In three of the five regional tournaments, the Mavericks have made it past the first round and have accrued a NCAA Tournament record of 6-4 during the Wagner era.
 
During this season, Coach Wagner captured his 200^th win with Colorado Mesa after an 89-57 win over UCCS on January 4. He currently sits in second in program history in wins as a coach.
 
FREE YEAR
With uncertainty rampant during the college basketball season this year, the NCAA granted all winter sports student athletes (Basketball, Wrestling, Indoor Track, Swimming & Diving) an extra year of eligibility similar to what took place during the fall season with football, volleyball, soccer and cross country.
 
What does that mean to the Mavericks women's basketball team? All eight seniors could return for a fifth year of eligibility if they would like to.
 
THE RMAC
The Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference will look a little different this year in terms of the standings. With every team not able to play the same amount of games this year, the conference decided to implement the NCAA Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) or Performance Indicator (PI) to determine the standings this year.
 
Here is a quick rundown of how the RPI or PI works:

• Teams will earn points based on their opponent and whether they win or lose each week. The better the opponent the more points you earn whether you win or lose.
• The breaks for opponents occur at .250, .500 and .750 winning percentages and can change all year long.
• Once a team has their points, they will be divided by the number of games that have been played this year to get their RPI or PI number.
• The highest RPI or PI will be the conference champion. 

WHAT'S NEXT
Colorado Mesa will be back on the road next weekend as they take on a pair of Western Slope rivals in Western Colorado and Fort Lewis.