STRENGTH OF SCHEDULE
Colorado Mesa will travel to Hays, Kan. for the Fort Hays State Tournament and for the second straight week they will play a WBCA ranked opponent when they square off with No. 3 Fort Hays State, a team that reached the NCAA Central Region Championship game a season ago.

They will also take on an upstart Northwest Missouri State team that has started the season 2-0 and has its sights set on a stronger finish than the projected 6/7 finish projected by the coaches and media in the MIAA respectively.

The Mavericks opened the season with a pair of Lone Star Conference foes with No. 6 West Texas A&M, who beat No. 3 Fort Hays State in the D2CCA Tip-off Classic, and another upstart team in Texas Permian Basin. Colorado Mesa fell to both foes.

ROUGH START
Colorado Mesa is off to a rough start with the 0-2 record. It is the first time in head coach Taylor Wagner's career he has started the season with two losses and, in fact, it is the first time the Mavericks have started 0-2 since the 2011-12 season. That season they fell to Chico State (L, 62-59) and Sonoma State (L, 55-54) on the road in Northern California.

Following the 2011-12 season, the Mavericks hired Taylor Wagner as their women's basketball coach and he led them to back-to-back 30-win seasons and a spot in the 2012-13 NCAA Elite Eight.

GETTING IT DONE
Redshirt senior Monica Brooks provided the spark the Mavericks needed to get the season started despite coming out on the losing end in both games. Brooks provided the Mavericks with a scoring threat from inside and outside as she averaged 14 points a night and was 2-for-4 from beyond the three-point arc.

Brooks, the lone senior on the team, and freshman Olivia Reed were the only two Mavericks that reached double figures in both games.

STARS IN THE MAKING
Freshmen Olivia Reed and Jamisyn Heaton have the opportunity to become the next great Colorado Mesa women's basketball duo. Both made their first career starts in game one of their collegiate careers this past weekend.

Reed had an outstanding season-opening weekend in South Dakota as she nearly averaged a double double in the first two games of the season. She had 14 points in her debut against No. 6 West Texas A&M and backed it up with a 10 point, 11 rebound effort in the matchup with Texas Permian Basin for her first career double double.

Reed finished the week as the No. 2 rebounder in the RMAC at 9.5 boards per game and was also the No. 2 player in the conference in field goal percentage as she is shooting 78.6 percent from the field.

Heaton proved her versatility in the opening weekend. She had 11 points and four rebounds in 25 minutes in the matchup with No. 6 West Texas A&M and followed up with a near double double against Texas Permian Basin as she finished with nine points and nine rebounds in 31 minutes against the Falcons. She may need to get a little more efficient with her shots as she finished 4-for-13, including 1-for-8 from three, from the field against UTPB.

HANDLE WITH CARE
We could continue to go on and on about the 0-2 start for the Mavericks but we are going to go into a couple of solutions for success.

The first and likely primary thing they will need to improve on is the turnovers. The Mavericks committed a total of 35 turnovers in the two games including 23 in the loss to Texas Permian Basin. The Falcons scored 28 points off turnovers and Colorado Mesa losses by 18 points.

DEFEND, DEFEND, DEFEND
Head coach Taylor Wagner preaches defense in his program and while the optics may not have seemed bad, the numbers would say different.

During the first week of the season, teh Mavericks ranked 14 out of 15 in scoring defense as they allowed 74 points per game. Now with that being said the quality of opponents varies from team to team within the conference. In comparison to last season's senior laden team, they allowed 57.3 points per game.

THE LINE
Colorado Mesa is shooting just 63 percent from the free-throw line through two games which ranked No. 13 in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference. That number will improve with comfort throughout the season with such a young team.

Kylie Kravig leads the team from the line as she hits on 75 percent of her free-throw opportunities.

NEWCOMER TO WATCH
Junior transfer Laura Gutierrez came to Colorado Mesa from Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference foe Adams State. For the Grizzlies, Gutierrez was one of the team's top scorers from beyond the arc.

The Rio Rancho, N.M. native had a slow start to the season as she hit on just over 16 percent of her three-point opportunities and one would expect her to gain more comfort in the program and hit on those at a better rate.

She made nearly 38 percent of her three-pointers during her sophomore season at Adams State.

RMAC PRESEASON POLL
Colorado Mesa was picked to finish fifth in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference as voted on by the coaches. The Mavericks are coming off a year where they made the the NCAA South Central Region Tournament for the sixth time during his tenure.

Colorado School of Mines was picked to win the conference garnering 183 points and eight first place votes. RMAC coaches seemed to be mixed on what they think. Five schools received at least one first place vote which included Mines, second place CSU Pueblo, third place Black Hills State, fourth place MSU Denver, and the Mavericks.

THE LONE SENIOR
With the large group of COVID players exiting a year ago, Colorado Mesa has just one senior on their roster this season. In fact, they have just one junior on the roster as well.

Redshirt senior Monica Brooks is the lone senior on the roster and one of three Mavericks that has starting experience on the team as she entered the season with 19 career starts and has a record of 13-6 in those starts when she started the season.

THE STAFF
Joining head coach Taylor Wagner on his staff is long time assistant Hannah Pollart. The Colorado Mesa grad has been the Mavericks assistant coach since May of 2016 after a short stop at Northeastern Junior College. She was responsible for on and off campus recruiting, conditioning, weight training, player development, and scouting reports.

With Colorado Mesa, she coaches the posts, assists with recruiting, develops scouting reports, and coordinates travel among other duties taht assist in the development of the program.

As a player, she starred at Colorado Mesa for one season and helped lead the Mavericks to the NCAA South Central Region Championship game. During her senior season, she averaged 7.2 points and 6.1 rebounds per game.