GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. – Colorado Mesa men's basketball's quest to return to the top of the RMAC and reach the latter stages of the NCAA tournament begins this weekend with a pair of contests in the Lone Star state.
Colorado Mesa will have an early test against two of the Lone Star Conference's preseason top five teams, meaning the first weekend of the season will have significant regional implications for the entire campaign.
The Mavericks are heading to the campus of St. Edward's University in Austin, Texas, for both games this weekend as part of the D2 Conference Challenge. The Mavs will face Dallas Baptist in a neutral-site game on Friday at 4 p.m. and will play St. Edward's on Saturday at 3 p.m. (MT).
Great Expectations
The Mavericks, who return a staggering 16 players from last season's roster, were picked to finish first in a talented Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference that had four teams in the top 20 entering the NCAA Tournament last season. CMU received eight of a possible 15 first-place votes.
That continuity and returning experience may be key as several of the RMAC's top teams are reloaded with new faces. Just two of last season's 10 RMAC First-Team All-Conference members return to the conference in 2023-24, with a significant number of the departed players now competing at the Division I level or professionally.
The Mavs finished first in the poll ahead of Fort Lewis, who received four first-place votes, and Colorado School of Mines, who received three. Fort Lewis won a co-RMAC regular season championship with CMU and took home the RMAC Tournament crown at Brownson Arena last season, knocking off Mines in the tournament championship game.
Black Hills State, who has advanced to back-to-back NCAA Tournament Final Fours but needs to replace two-time defending RMAC Player of the Year Joel Scott, is fourth in the preseason poll followed by Chadron State in fifth, who returns First Team All-Conference forward Josh Robinson.
Colorado Mesa also earned a preseason No. 14 ranking from the NABC Division II Preseason Coaches Poll. That was the highest ranking among RMAC teams, as the Mavs are just ahead of RMAC foes Fort Lewis at No. 15, Black Hills State at No. 17 and Colorado School of Mines at No. 18.
Media Circuit
After the Mavericks were picked first in the conference's preseason poll, head coach
Mike DeGeorge sat down for an interview with RMAC media relations staff. You can watch the video on the CMU YouTube channel or by clicking
this link.
The Roster
With 16 returning players, much of last season's roster and rotation is intact for the Mavericks.
It all starts with
Trevor Baskin and
Mac Riniker. Baskin, a First Team All-RMAC forward from 2022, returns after averaging 14 points and 7.1 rebounds per game while ranking third in the conference with a .585 field-goal percentage. Riniker, the defending RMAC Defensive Player of the Year, led the conference with 53 steals last season and had the sixth-most blocks with 29.
Overall, Baskin and Riniker will provide matchup problems on both offense and defense with their ability to both play and guard all five positions on the court.
Christopher Speller, the 2021 RMAC Freshman of the Year, will likely see more ball-handling duties after the departure of First Team All-RMAC point guard
Blaise Threatt, but the Mavs are likely to emphasize ball movement more in their offensive sets this season as the Mavs move to an up-tempo, spread offense.
In redshirt juniors
Reece Johnson and
Isaac Jessup, the Mavs return two likely starters with All-RMAC Honorable Mention selections on their resume who can defend and shoot at a high level. The Mavs return three players who shot over 40 percent from three last season – Jessup (45.8 percent), sophomore guard
Elijah Knudsen (45.5 percent) and redshirt junior
Owen Koonce (42.7 percent).
While Baskin and Riniker can function as CMU's frontcourt, the Mavs have multiple options with size off the bench returning with 6-foot-9
Ty Allred, 6-foot-6
Michael McCurry and the 6-foot-5 Koonce (7.4 ppg, 11 blocks).
The wild card for CMU this season will be the health of
Ethan Menzies, who became the third All-American in program history in 2021 but has missed the entirety of the last two seasons due to multiple serious knee injuries. Menzies is scheduled to return in midseason.
Despite all the returning firepower, the Mavericks could see contributions from new faces as well. 7-foot-1 center
JP Shiers redshirted last season and could be a part of CMU's frontcourt plans.
Aidan Kuhl, a Fort Collins native, joins the Mavericks as a transfer from North Alabama, where he shot over 40 percent from the field and from three in 20 games as a reserve for the Lions.
Schedule Highlights
The 2023-24 version of the Mavericks' men's basketball schedule features an assortment of high-profile showdowns. The Mavs are currently scheduled to play five games against teams ranked in the NABC Preseason Top 25, with three at Brownson Arena.
While none of the three are nationally-ranked, the Mavs open the 2023-24 season by playing three of the Lone Star's top six preseason teams right off the bat. The Mavericks open with a neutral site game against DBU, which was picked fifth in the Lone Star, then have a true road game against St. Edward's, who was picked third in the Lone Star and received one first place vote (out of 45). CMU's home opener comes on November 17 against a Texas A&M-Kingsville team who, like CMU, lost in the first round of the NCAA Tournament last season. The Javelinas were picked sixth in the Lone Star.
Perhaps the marquee game on the schedule is a neutral site clash on December 18 against West Texas A&M. The Buffs swept the Lone Star regular season and tournament titles last year and secured the No. 1 seed in last year's South Central Regional, eventually losing in the NCAA Sweet 16 to Black Hills State.
West Texas A&M is picked to win the Lone Star once again this season, receiving 34 of 45 first-place votes in the Lone Star poll, and the Buffs are the top-ranked South Central region team in the NABC poll with a preseason No. 7 ranking. The contest against WTA&M, along with a game against Simon Fraser the following day, will take place at Desert Oasis High School in Las Vegas, Nevada.
With four preseason top-18 teams in the RMAC, there will be no shortage of nationally-ranked showdowns in conference play. Last season, Colorado Mesa had three road games against the conference's top four, including unreturned trips to Black Hills State and Fort Lewis. This year, the tables turn with the Mavericks hosting all three of the conference's top four.
CMU is scheduled to play at Colorado School of Mines to open up the RMAC season on Friday, December 1, with a home game against the Orediggers on Friday, February 16. Black Hills State will come to Grand Junction on Friday, January 19, while the following week on January 26 will see Fort Lewis enter Brownson Arena for the first time since taking down the RMAC Tournament championship last March. The Fort Lewis game will also be the annual Blizzard in Brownson, presented by Coca-Cola.
Other Brownson highlights from the RMAC season include a Saturday, January 6 matchup against New Mexico Highlands, coached by former CMU All-American Mike Dominguez, and the home rivalry game against Western Colorado to close out the regular season on Saturday, March 2.
About the D2 Conference Challenge
The postseason implications begin immediately for the Mavs, as CMU plays each of its first four games against Lone Star Conference opponents. For those unfamiliar with the Division II postseason process, the RMAC and Lone Star Conference are competing directly against one another for the eight South Central Region qualifying spots in the NCAA Tournament, so any head-to-head results over LSC schools can pay big dividends when comparing resumes at the end of the season.
The D2 Conference Challenge is a four-team scheduling agreement between CMU and Colorado Christian from the RMAC and Dallas Baptist and St. Edward's from the Lone Star to begin each season. For the ninth time in the last 10 seasons, these four programs will gather at one school's campus for each of the RMAC schools and Lone Star schools to play one another.
The four teams completed two four-year cycles with each school hosting twice, with a pause during the 2020-21 season interrupted by COVID-19. The Mavericks hosted the D2 Conference Challenge last season at Brownson Arena, going 2-0 against St. Edward's and DBU for the first time in that eight-year span.
About DBU
Dallas Baptist is picked to finish fifth in the Lone Star Conference this season after a 2022 that saw them go 17-14 overall, 12-10 in the Lone Star and 8-6 in the Lone Star East Division. The Patriots missed the NCAA Tournament in 2022-23, breaking what had been a five-year streak of tournament appearances for DBU.
The Patriots return three All-Conference players from last season – first-teamer Cameron Kahn (14.0 ppg, .540 field-goal percentage) and third-teamers Ricky Lujan (12.7 ppg, .502 field-goal percentage) and Ta'Jay Dunlap (12.0 ppg, 3.1 apg). DBU went 1-1 against the RMAC last season, losing 68-56 to CMU and beating Colorado Christian 89-60.
Colorado Mesa is 4-4 all-time against Dallas Baptist, with all meetings coming during the Conference Challenge. For the Mavs, last season's win over DBU broke a streak of the Patriots winning four of the five meetings from 2016-2021. The lone exception during that run was an upset CMU win over the then-No. 21 Patriots in 2018, which was head coach
Mike DeGeorge's first win at Colorado Mesa.
Dr. Blake Flickner has been the head coach at DBU since 2006-07 and is beginning his 19
th season at the helm of the Patriots. Flickner has over 300 wins in his career and has led DBU to seven NCAA Tournaments, including six of the last eight years. Flickner and the Patriots were successful members of the Heartland Conference, winning two regular-season titles and two tournaments from 2016-18 before that conference merged with the Lone Star ahead of the 2018-19 season.
About St. Edward's
St. Edward's was picked third in the Lone Star Conference preseason poll, receiving one first-place vote. Last season, the Hilltoppers were 21-11 overall, 15-7 in the Lone Star and 10-4 in the Lone Star East Division, where they tied Texas A&M Kingsville for the division title. St. Edward's was the No. 4 seed in the Lone Star Conference tournament, losing in the first round to eventual NCAA Tournament participant Lubbock Christian.
Unlike Colorado Mesa and DBU, St. Edward's has been on the court already this season. The Hilltoppers went 2-1 in the CCA DII Canadian Tip-Off Classic hosted by Simon Fraser in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. St. Edward's played three teams from the Great Northwest Athletic Conference (GNAC), beating Seattle Pacific 77-72 and Simon Fraser 86-54 while losing to Western Washington 97-93.
Sophomore Sean Elkinton won the first Lone Star Offensive Player of the Week award after averaging 22 points and seven rebounds per game in St. Edward's three opening contests. Elkinton shot 23-36 (.625) from the field and had a double-double of 11 points and 11 rebounds in the season-opener. Junior forward Blake Nielsen (14.3 ppg, 5.7 rpg), senior guard Jeff Gary (12.7 ppg) and junior guard Jayden Johnston (5-for-5 on 3PTFG) also excelled over the first weekend.
Colorado Mesa is only 2-6 all-time against the Hilltoppers, but those two wins have come in the last two seasons after St. Edward's won six straight meetings from 2014-2019.
Trevor Baskin had 26 points and nine rebounds while
Mac Riniker had five steals in last year's meeting. CMU is 0-2 on St. Edwards's home floor in Austin, losing 74-61 in 2014 and 84-72 in 2018.
St. Edward's also has an entrenched head coach in Andre Cook, who has been with the Hilltoppers since 2009-10. The Hilltoppers' best season was in 2018-19, when they went 30-4 and reached the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament. Cook has a winning record in each of the last eight seasons and in nine of his 13 years at St. Edward's.
Coach's Corner
In his five seasons in Grand Junction,
Mike DeGeorge has transformed the Mavericks into a perennial national and conference contender, winning two RMAC Coach of the Year awards in the process.
From 2018-19 through 2022-23, DeGeorge has compiled a 112-38 record at the helm of the Mavericks, topping the 20-win plateau in four consecutive seasons. 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.
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's team won a program-record 26 games, advancing 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.
The Mavs won a co-RMAC regular season championship in 2022-23, going 19-3 in the RMAC and 25-6 overall while making their fourth consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance. The team stepped up in tough environments, going 3-0 on the road against top-15 opponents as DeGeorge nabbed his second RMAC Coach of the Year award.
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. He has over 300 career wins as a head coach.
