GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — Colorado Mesa's depth is sure to come in handy this weekend when the up-tempo Mavericks travel to Alamosa to face Adams State, a team that also likes to push the pace.
Keeping fresh legs on the floor isn't a problem for the No. 8/14 Mavericks, who have nine players who average 10 or more minutes a game and can go a dozen deep without missing a step.
Tipoff on Friday (Dec. 15) is at 5:30 p.m., but the Mavericks, coming off final exams this week, have more work to do next week, playing a pair of in-region games in Las Vegas, Nev., before taking time off for the holidays.
CMU (7-1, 4-0 RMAC) has won seven straight games and is the second-highest scoring team in the conference, averaging 84.3 points a game (Fort Lewis scores 84.6). The Grizzlies (3-7, 1-3 RMAC) put up 75.8 points a night, but are last in the RMAC in scoring defense, allowing 82.5 points. The Mavs give up 73.8 points a game.
QUICK LOOK BACK
After facing a CU-Colorado Springs team that employed a zone defense and threw the Mavs' offense off in the first half, CMU played its most complete game of the season the next night against Regis.
The Mountain Lions' zone had the Mavs in a 13-point hole at halftime, but a renewed focus on defense in the second half resulted in UCCS scoring only 19 points in the final 20 minutes in CMU's 70-62 victory.
Against the Rangers, the Mavericks put everything together on both ends of the floor, shooting 56% from the field, 51% from the 3-point line and held the Rangers to 27.8% shooting and only 15% from 3. A 19-point run erased CMU's only deficit of the night — 3-0 after the opening bucket — and all 15 players on the active roster logged minutes, with all but four getting into the scoring column.
QUICK LOOK AHEAD
Most teams in the RMAC will head home for the holidays after this weekend, but the Mavs will travel west to Sin City for the High Desert Classic, where they'll face No. 5 West Texas A&M in a key South Central Region game on Monday (Dec. 18) and Simon Fraser on Tuesday (Dec. 19).
The game against the Red Leafs will count as an in-region game because the RMAC is contiguous to the Great Northwest Athletic Conference.
Both games in Las Vegas will be live-streamed on a pay-per-view basis.
The Mavericks will then take their NCAA-mandated break and return after Christmas to prepare for home games Jan. 5-6 against CSU Pueblo and New Mexico Highlands.
IN THE POLLS
The seven-game winning streak has the Mavericks rising in the polls, up to No. 8 from No. 15 in the National Association of Basketball Coaches poll. The rise was more modest in the D2CSC (College Sports Communicators) rankings, to No. 14, up three spots. In the unofficial D2CSC South Central Regional poll, the Mavs leapfrogged Dallas Baptist into the No. 1 spot.
The NCAA's Wayne Cavadi released his first Power 10 rankings on Monday, with CMU and Dallas Baptist tied for the No. 4 spot — the Patriots handed the Mavs their only loss of the season, 89-84 in the season opener in Texas.
Cavadi noted the Mavericks' strength of schedule, which he called one of the toughest in Division II.
SCORING IN THE BALANCE
Talk about picking your poison — four of CMU's starters average double figures, and on any given night, they will have a different leading scorer.
Trevor Baskin scores 17.3 points a game, Mac Riniker 16.3, Owen Koonce 12.6 and Isaac Jessup 11.3. All four have led the Mavs in scoring in one or more games, and four reserves have reached double figures at least once this season.
Baskin, Riniker, Koonce and Jessup have started each game, with Christopher Speller starting four and Reece Johnson and Elijah Knudsen one each.
CMU coach Mike DeGeorge has the depth at his disposal to substitute with full five-man line changes, or one or two players at a time, depending on the situation.
SERIES HISTORY
The Mavericks are 57-26 all-time against Adams State and on a 10-game winning streak. They've won 22 of 38 games in Alamosa.
CMU has only played West Texas A&M twice, losing both games, including 72-63 in 2021 in Canyon, Texas. Their previous meeting was in 2003. The Mavericks are 2-0 against Simon Fraser, winning 77-62 in 2022 and 80-56 in 2021, both in Grand Junction.
SCOUTING THE GRIZZLIES
With a new coach and only a handful of players returning from last season, Adams State is going through some early growing pains.
Adams State hired Kenny Tripp in May to replace Russ Caton, who resigned after eight seasons. Tripp was an assistant at the University of Idaho the four years prior to moving to Alamosa, and was on the staff at Washington State before that. He also had stints as a graduate assistant at Regis, earning his MBA, and was an assistant for one year at MSU Denver.
The season started promising, with a pair of wins against Lone Star Conference teams in a regional crossover tournament, but Adams State then dropped seven straight. The Grizzlies ended that skid last weekend at home with a 78-71 victory over New Mexico Highlands.
Destan Williams, a redshirt senior guard, leads ASU in scoring at 15.4 points a game. He played at Adams State in 2020-21, scoring 20 points a game in the conference-only season shortened by COVID, then transferred out before returning to Alamosa for his final year.
Austin Fadal, one of 10 newcomers on the roster, is scoring 14.9 points and grabbing 4.5 rebounds a game. Williams and Fadal are the only players to start all 10 games for Adams State, which has used six other players in the starting rotation.
SCOUTING THE BUFFS
Monday's game (1 p.m. Mountain) will be a top-10 showdown, with West Texas A&M (8-1) entering the weekend ranked No. 5 in the NABC poll.
The Buffs' only loss came to the RMAC's MSU Denver, 80-79 in mid-November when the Roadrunners' Brayden Maldonado hit a 3-pointer with two seconds remaining.
The closest games West Texas A&M has played since then is a six-point win over Oklahoma Christian and a seven-point victory over Texas A&M-Kingsville. The Mavericks downed Kingsville 91-75 earlier this season at Brownson and also have another common opponent, Texas A&M International, a 77-73 win. The Buffs beat International 71-45 last week.
CMU also has an 85-82 win over MSU Denver, which was ranked No. 8 at the time.
Guard-laden West Texas averages 83.2 points a game and allows only 68.7, and like CMU, has four players scoring in double figures. All but one player on the roster is listed as a guard — the Buffs have a freshman post, 7-foot Australian Harry Evans, who has played in only four games.
Larry Wise, a 6-foot-5 senior guard, is at 20.3 points, with Zach Toussaint, a 5-11 senior guard, adding 11.2, 6-6 freshman guard Kieran Elliott 11.0 and 6-6 senior guard Ryland Holt 10.1 on a team that shoots 47.5% from the field. The fifth starter, 6-0 sophomore guard Ahamed Mohammed, scores 7.8 points a game.
The Buffs make 36% of their 3-point attempts and out-rebound their opponents by nearly 6 a game, pulling down 38.2 a night. They force teams to turn the ball over 14 times a game to their 10 a game.
SCOUTING THE RED LEAFS
On Tuesday (11 a.m. Mountain), the Mavs will face a relatively rested team in Simon Fraser, which hasn't played since Dec. 2. The Red Leafs (2-8) have lost three straight, including going 0-2 in MSU Denver's Thanksgiving Classic, falling 64-59 to Regis and 88-59 to Metro. They then dropped their GNAC opener 96-74 to Western Washington.
Simon Fraser is being outscored by 10 points a game, 76-66, shooting 43% from the field and 32.6% from the 3-point line.
Elliot Dimaculangen, a 6-4 junior guard, is scoring 11.8 points a game and pulls down nearly six rebounds, with David Penney, a 6-1 senior guard, adding 10.6 points and 3.1 rebounds a game. Four others score between 5-9 points a night for the Leafs, who were picked to finish 10th in the 10-team GNAC this season after a 6-22 record in 2022-23.
The Red Leafs do have size up front, with Georges Lefebvre, a 6-8 redshirt junior forward (8.7 ppg, 3.0 rpg), and Immanuel Oludele, a 6-7 sophomore swingman (8.2 ppg, 4.0 rpg), along with 6-11 redshirt sophomore center Sasha Vijisic, who comes off the bench (3.7 ppg, 4.3 rpg).
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.
