GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. – Colorado Mesa men's basketball will return from the holiday break seeking to build upon a three-game win streak with challenging road match-ups at CSU Pueblo and New Mexico Highlands.

The Mavericks entered the December layoff on a high note by defeating Adams State 74-65 on Saturday, December 17 behind 15 points from Trevor Baskin and 13 apiece from Blaise Threatt and Michael McCurry, who achieved a career-high in points with the performance.

RECAPS: Adams State

The Mavericks have an 8-3 overall record with a 3-2 mark in the RMAC, which has them tied for fifth in the still-jumbled conference standings. They will travel to face CSU Pueblo at 4 p.m. on Friday before battling New Mexico Highlands at 4 p.m. on Saturday.

Chef McCurry
Michael McCurry scored 13 points against Adams State, the highest total of his career and the first time this season that McCurry had scored more than three points in a game.

McCurry's previous career-high also came against Adams State back on December 18, 2020, when the forward went 3-for-3 from the field, 2-for-2 from the deep and 2-2 from the line to finish with 10 points.

This season, McCurry has appeared in 10 of CMU's 11 games this season, averaging 8.5 minutes per game while shooting 35 percent from the field and 31 percent from deep.

Facts and Figures
Colorado Mesa is scoring 75.5 points per game, which ranks seventh in the RMAC, and is allowing 68.8 points per game, the fifth-lowest mark in the conference. The Mavericks rank in the top five in the RMAC in team field goal percentage (.477), three-point percentage (.386) and free-throw percentage (.753).

The Mavs have forced the second-most turnovers per game (15, trailing UCCS) and allow the fewest opponent rebounds per game in the RMAC (28.8 per game).

Individually, Blaise Threatt ranks in the top 10 in points, rebounds and assists per game while leading the RMAC in steals. Trevor Baskin cracks the top 10 in two of those categories, ranking 10^th with 16 points per game and ninth with 7.1 rebounds per game. Baskin is also second in the RMAC with 1.3 blocks per game, trailing Ezichi Kalu of New Mexico Highlands, and has the eighth-best field-goal percentage in the conference at .559.

Mac Riniker is averaging a block per game and 1.5 steals per game, which puts him tied for sixth and tied for seventh, respectively, on the conference leaderboards.

Number One Scoring Option
Heading into the holiday break, there was no scorer in the RMAC or maybe even the country more on fire than Dante Moses, whom the Mavericks will try to shut down on Saturday when they play New Mexico Highlands.

Moses is the conference's second-leading scorer at 22.7 points per game, but has put up 35, 33 and 48 points in his last three games. The 48 points is the highest single-game total in the RMAC this season, while all three scoring performances rank in the conference's top eight for 2022-23.

Maverick Legend
While he may spend Saturday coaching on the New Mexico Highlands sideline, Mike Dominguez has rich CMU pedigree.  

Dominguez is the first Division II All-American in Colorado Mesa men's basketball history, winning RMAC Player of the Year and Central Region Player of the Year during a 2010 season that saw the Mavericks win 23 games and earn their first NCAA Tournament win as a program. Dominguez followed that with a six-year stint as a coach for the Mavs under former head coaches Jim Heaps and Andy Shantz, who made Dominguez his recruiting coordinator and lead assistant.

Dominguez spent two years as the associate head coach at New Mexico Highlands before taking over as head coach, a position he has held since the 2019-20 season.

About CSU Pueblo
The Thunderwolves of CSU Pueblo are 6-5 overall with a 2-3 RMAC record. They went into the holiday break with two straight losses, falling to No. 12 Fort Lewis and South Dakota Mines in overtime. CSUP's conference wins are over Colorado Christian and Adams State. They also recorded a pair of nonconference wins over Lone Star opponents Midwestern State and Cameron.  

The Thunderwolves have a balanced offensive attack, ranking sixth in the RMAC with 78.1 points per game despite not having any of the conference's top 20 individual scorers. Sophomore guard Lian Ramiro leads the team with 13.6 points per game. Senior forward Meekness Payne is second with 12.7 points per game but has been the offensive hot hand lately, scoring 14 against Fort Lewis and 22 against South Dakota Mines.

Sophomore forward Isaiah Thompson leads the Thunderwolves and ranks fourth in the RMAC with 8.6 rebounds per game despite only starting once for Pueblo. Thompson has recorded 13 or more rebounds on four different occasions, including a monster 24-point, 14-rebound performance against Bacone that is the team's highest single-game scoring output of the year. He has two double-doubles this season.

The ThunderWolves hang their hat on defense, holding opponents to just 66.4 points per game to rank second in the conference. They have the third-best opposing field goal percentage in the league (.411) and the fourth-best opposing three-point percentage (.309).

Head Coach Matt Hammer has been at the helm since the 2019-20 season. In his three seasons, he has led the Thunderwolves to a high of 12 wins, which he achieved last year. Prior to landing the job at Pueblo, Hammer compiled a 118-43 record at Sheridan, a junior college in Wyoming, where he was a two-time regional Coach of the Year.

Hammer has also been an assistant coach at the Division II level with Saginaw Valley State and his alma mater, Northern State. While playing at NSU, Hammer was a part of four 20-win teams that won two Northern Sun Tournament Championships. He is also a former South Dakota Mr. Basketball from his high school career.

About New Mexico Highlands
New Mexico Highlands is 5-7 in 2022-23, but are off to a promising start in RMAC play. The Cowboys are 3-3, with two of their losses coming to nationally-ranked teams in Fort Lewis and Black Hills State. They have defeated Colorado Christian, Adams State and South Dakota Mines in conference play.

The Cowboys boast the RMAC's second-leading scorer in senior guard Dante Moses. A native of Riviera Beach, Florida, Moses on his fifth collegiate roster after spending a season apiece at Florida junior colleges Palm Beach State and Daytona State, a season at Division I Radford and a season at Division II Angelo State.

Moses only averaged three points per game at Radford and 5.3 points per game at Angelo State, but since being handed the keys to the Cowboys offense, he's upped that to 22.7 points per game at New Mexico Highlands. The two-week layoff couldn't have come at a worse time for Moses, who was on a tear over his last three games, scoring 35 points against Adams State, 33 points against national top-10 opponent Black Hills State, and a career-high 48 against South Dakota Mines in the final game before the break.

Unfortunately for the Cowboys, Moses has been a one-man show at times. Sophomore Jalen Munn has the second-highest scoring output on the team at 8.7 points per game. Even during Moses' 48-point explosion, the second-highest scoring Cowboy was Eric Sonnenberg with 10 points, and NMHU only won by two points. Moses also leads the team with 6.7 rebounds per game, 3.4 more than any other Cowboy.

Cowboys head coach Mike Dominguez should be a familiar name to Maverick fans, as he was an All-American player at CMU before serving as an assistant for six years with the Mavericks. Dominguez spent two years as the head assistant at NMHU and took over as head coach in 2019-20, inheriting a team coming off its first-ever RMAC Tournament title in 2019.

Dominguez went 18-10 (13-9 RMAC) in his first year in charge but New Mexico Highlands did not compete at all during the 2020-21 season due to COVID-19. He finished 15-14 (10-12 RMAC) in 2021-22.  

Series History
Colorado Mesa has won 44 meetings against CSU Pueblo, compared to just 24 wins for the Thunderwolves. The Mavericks have won the past four meetings, including a 10-point home victory last season.

The Mavs hold an even-bigger edge over New Mexico Highlands, leading that all-time series 54-20. Highlands had its greatest period of dominance in the series recently, winning five straight matchups from 2016-2019, but Colorado Mesa has won the past two, including a comfortable 24-point win on New Year's Day in 2022.

In the Polls
Colorado Mesa is receiving votes in the latest NABC Coaches' Poll. They are the only RMAC team receiving votes while three RMAC teams are ranked – Black Hills State at No. 3 with Mines at No. 8 and Fort Lewis at No. 15.

Colorado Mesa continued to rise in the D2SIDA South Central regional rankings, moving up two spots to No. 6. The Mavs are the fourth-highest RMAC team in the rankings, as the conference occupies the top three spots with Black Hills State, Colorado School of Mines and Fort Lewis. The Mavs have wins over the No. 8 (UCCS) and No. 9 (St. Edward's) teams in the rankings.

The D2SIDA national poll features Black Hills State at No. 3, Mines at No. 9 and Fort Lewis at No. 22.   

Colorado Mesa finished second in the RMAC Preseason Coaches' Poll, trailing only Black Hills State, who received 14 of 15 first-place votes. Colorado School of Mines got the final first-place vote and came third, followed by Fort Lewis and UCCS.

Coach's Corner
Mike DeGeorge has taken the Colorado Mesa program to unprecedented heights since arriving ahead of the 2018-19 season.

He improved the Mavericks from 11 to 19 wins in his first season and crossed the 20-win barrier in 2019-20, leading CMU to an RMAC Tournament Championship from the No. 4 seed. That clinched what would have been the Mavs' first NCAA Tournament Appearance since 2011, but the NCAA Tournament was canceled in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 2020-21 campaign saw the Mavericks start the season with 14 consecutive wins on the way to the RMAC Regular Season and Tournament Championships and finishing the regular season ranked No. 1 in the nation. DeGeorge was named RMAC and NCAA West Region Coach of the Year.

In 2021-22, DeGeorge led the Mavericks to within half a game of a regular-season conference championship before leading the team to the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 for the first time in program history, a run that included a win over regional No. 1 seed Lubbock Christian.

Prior to CMU, DeGeorge was the head coach at Eureka College in Eureka, Ill. from 2000-04, Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa from 2004-09 and Rhodes College in Memphis, Tenn. for eight seasons from 2010-2018.