GOLDEN, Colo. – Following Friday's NCAA Division II West Regional quarterfinal, the Colorado Mesa men's basketball team is set to take on Northwest Nazarene in game two of Saturday's semifinal.
The game was initially scheduled to tip-off at 8:45 p.m., however in anticipation of heavy winter weather rolling through the Denver area overnight Saturday, game times have been moved up with the Mavericks now playing at 7:30 p.m. in Lockridge Arena. Fans are not allowed to attend, but a free live stream is available through minesathletics.com
It has been a week since the top-seeded Mavericks last suited up, and a year to date since the team got the phone call that brought their season to an abrupt end. Since that fateful day, the Mavs returned in the fall with a majority of the squad that won the first Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference tournament championship, while also adding a high-caliber freshman class.
With a schedule limited to just conference opponents, they picked up where they left off and finished the regular season with a 18-1 record, earning the outright RMAC regular season championship. They then made it back-to-back tournament titles, with a 75-74 overtime win over Colorado School of Mines.
Mac Riniker,
Georgie Dancer and
Jared Small were named to the RMAC All-Tournament Team, joined by teammate
Ethan Menzies who took home Tournament MVP honors.
Not only do the Mavs enter the tournament as the No. 1 seed, but garnered eight first-place votes in the final National Association of Basketball Coaches for the No. 1 spot.
NORTHWEST NAZARENE NIGHTHAWKS
Coming out of the Great Northwest Athletic Conference, a conference that didn't post a conference schedule or a conference postseason tournament, are the Nighthawks of Northwest Nazarene (12-4).
The Nighthawks entered the tournament as the No. 5 seed, and advances to Saturday's semifinal after avenging their early season loss to Point Loma, 85-73 in Friday's quarterfinal. Ezekiel
Alley led the team with 20-points on the night, thanks to a 10-of-10 performance at the line. Sam Roth and Gabriel Murphy were the other two players in double-figures with 18 and 12 points respectively.
NNU got off to a hot start and didn't look back. They shot at a 50% clip to Point Lomas 44%, picking up their first NCAA win.
Prior to Saturday, the teams have only met once before back on Nov. 18, 2006 in the same Golden, Colo. setting. CMU came out on top, 91-85.
