The Colorado Mesa women's basketball team will head to Canyon, Texas for the NCAA South Central Regional Tournament this weekend. The Mavericks (23-6) enter the tournament as the No. 8 seed and are set to take on the No. 1 seed and host West Texas A&M (23-10) Buffs on Friday at 4:00 PM.
 
WE'RE DANCING
Colorado Mesa is making their seventh appearance in the NCAA Tournament with six of those coming with head coach Taylor Wagner at the helm. They have a 6-5 record in those appearances that includes a trip to the Elite Eight during the 2012-13 season.
 
Colorado Mesa is just one of 18 schools that have both men and women represented in the NCAA Basketball Tournament.
 
LEADER OF THE HERD
Senior Daniella Turner was named the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Player of the Year and was named to the D2CCA All-South Central Region First Team this week. Turner is averaging 19.1 points and 5.8 rebounds per game this season.
 
Turner will be playing in her third NCAA Tournament game on Friday. During the 2018-19 season, she played just six minutes against Texas A&M-Commerce in a Mavericks win before logging 17 minutes and 10 points in a narrow loss to eventual NCAA National Champion Lubbock Christian in Grand Junction.
 
Turner currently ranks No. 12 in program history in scoring with 1,289 points with her eyes set on the No. 11 spot held by Bonnie Brewster (1981-85) who has 1,317 points.
 
SITTING ON THE MILESTONE
Senior Kelsey Siemons is still sitting on 999 points in her career as she was held scoreless in the RMAC Tournament Semifinal loss to MSU Denver.
 
If she scores one point in the game on Friday against West Texas A&M, she would be the 20^th player in program history to score 1,000 points in her career. Siemons is averaging 9.3 points and 7.4 rebounds per game in her final season.
 
Siemons has already moved up as high as she can on the all-time blocked shots list with 201 total blocks. She is averaging 1.8 per game this season with 53 total this season, her personal season high.
 
RUNNING THE POINT
Graduate transfer Mariah Martin will be playing in her second NCAA Tournament but her first with Colorado Mesa. Martin played in last season's NCAA West Region Tournament in Grand Junction with Westminster. She helped the Griffins to the Regional Championship game where she had one of her best games of the season where she had 14 points, five rebounds, six assists in a loss to Azusa Pacific.
 
She has been nothing short of outstanding running the point for the Mavericks this year. She averages 19.3 points, 4.8 rebounds and 6.0 assists this season and has broken a program single season record that has stood since 1990. The Sandy, Utah native has handed out 173 assists to break Jill Teeters' (Derrieux) single season mark.

Her 560 points she has scored also ranks No. 6 in single season points and is just 12 points shy of tying Tonya Stites' mark of 572 in 1992.
 
ULTIMATE TEAM PLAYER
Paonia, Colo. product Sophie Anderson doesn't receive the accolades most of her teammates do but all of them are quick to point to her as one of the key pieces to the team. Anderson is having one of her best seasons statistically as she averages 7.2 points, 5.8 rebounds and a steal per game during her final year.
 
What most don't know is that she is asked to guard the opponent's top scorer night in and night out. In a stretch during late January and early February, she limited the scorers to under their season averages in three straight games including a season-low by one of the top scorers in the RMAC in Ashley Greenwood of Westminster.
 
PROGRESSION
Redshirt junior Monica Brooks entered the starting lineup in game 12 of the season which fell in the first game after the winter break. Since that time, she has steadily gotten better and more comfortable on the floor each game. Her number have continued to grow as she now averages 7.2 points and 4.2 rebounds per game.
 
Her best night may have come against Adams State on the road as she had 16 points and 11 rebounds for her first double double as a Maverick. She scored a career-high 19 points in the regular season finale against Fort Lewis on February 26.
 
THE BENCH
Colorado Mesa has used a seven-man rotation primarily this season, but it is not out of the ordinary for them to run the starters for the full 40 minutes. The two that have seen time off the bench are Emily Cavey and Kylie Kravig.
 
Cavey will spell both Monica Brooks and Kelsey Siemons as a big, but she can play inside and out. She averages 2.4 points and 1.7 rebounds while shooting 42 percent from the field and 30 percent from three.
 
Kravig will grab any of the other three positions and includes moving to be the primary ball handler at times. The Greeley, Colo. native is a pass first ball handler as she has 39 assists in 28 games and is a pesky defender with 18 steals as well.
 
SCOUTING THE BUFFS
Different than most regional tournaments you go to in any sport, Colorado Mesa and West Texas A&M are familiar with each other as they squared off in the second game of the season. The Mavericks came away with a 46-43 win over the Buffs with Mariah Martin leading all scorers with 17 points and Daniella Turner had a double double with 15 points and 10 rebounds.
 
In that game, the Buffs' top player Zamorye Roberts did not play. Roberts has averaged 13.3 points and nearly three assists a game this year. The Eastern New Mexico transfer had a 30-point game during the Lone Star Conference tournament last week.
 
Colorado Mesa's win back on November 13 was the lone win in the series for the Mavericks as they are 1-5 all-time against WT.
 
FACTS ABOUT THE FIELD
Three of the four matchups in this year's NCAA South Central Regional feature rematches of games that have already occurred this season. Along with the Colorado Mesa-West Texas A&M matchup, MSU Denver and Texas Woman's have already matched up while CSU Pueblo and Lubbock Christian also faced each other back in November. The lone non-rematch game is Colorado School of Mines and Texas A&M Commerce.
 
MSU Denver fell to Texas Woman's back on November 13 in a close matchup in Denton, Texas where the Pioneers won 86-83 in three overtimes.
 
CSU Pueblo has faced both Texas A&M – Commerce and Lubbock Christian back on November 12 and 13. They defeated then No. 1 ranked Lubbock Christian 64-56 in Denver during the conference crossover event.
 
FUN NOTE: Colorado School of Mines head coach Brittany Simpson is an alum of Colorado Mesa and played for the Mavericks from 2002-2006. She averaged 8.8 points, 2.3 rebounds and 1.3 assists in her career. She still has one of the top free-throw percentages in a career at Colorado Mesa with an 89.1 percentage during her time.
 
THE COACH
Head coach Taylor Wagner enters his tenth season as the man in charge of the Mavericks. He has amassed a 231-60 overall record (20+ wins per season average) and an astonishing 174-44 (15+ wins per season average) mark inside the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference during his tenure.
 
He has guided the Mavericks to six NCAA Tournament and made a trip to the NCAA Elite Eight during his first season with the program. He has been named the RMAC Coach of the Year five times in that span.
 
ON THE HORIZON
Its tournament time for everyone at this point so win and advance or lose and you are out. If the Mavericks win on Friday evening, they will move onto their fourth regional semifinal matchup in program history and play the winner of the MSU Denver-Texas Woman's matchup at 6:30pm on Saturday evening.