ALAMOSA, Colo.— Enjoying a top-10 national ranking, the Colorado Mesa University men's basketball team posted a convincing 99-71 wire-to-wire road win at Adams State University on Friday night here in the Grizzlies' Plachy Hall. 
 
The eighth-ranked Mavs led by as many as 36 in the victory, their eighth straight overall, and improved to 8-1 overall while taking a half-game lead over 17th ranked Fort Lewis in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference standings with a perfect 5-0 conference mark.  Fort Lewis hosts Westminster on Saturday.
 
ASU fell to 3-8 overall and to 1-4 in conference play.
 
CMU redshirt junior Mac Riniker needed just 24 on-court minutes to record a game-high 20 points on 9-for-11 shooting as the Mavs.  He also tallied seven rebounds while registering his third 20-point game of the season.
 
Three other Mavs also finished in double figures for scoring as Owen Koonce scored 18 while recording five rebounds, four steals and three assists.  Trevor Baskin and Aidan Kuhl also played well in the balanced onslaught, chipping in 13 points apiece.
 
The Mavs shot 49.3 percent from the field and held the Grizzlies to a 37.1 percent (26-70) mark.  The Mavs also finished with a commanding 50-30 advantage in rebounding as Michael McCurry finished with a game and career-high eight boards.  He also scored eight points in just 14 minutes of playing time as one of 15 Mavericks to see action.  A dozen of them scored while six combined to hit 11 3-pointers, including Kuhl, who had three triples en-route to his most prolific game as a Mav.
 
The Mavs' 99 points were a season-high and were their most in a RMAC game since recording a 101-66 win against Colorado Christian on Jan. 15, 2022.
 
Baskin drilled a 3-point on the opening possession of the game before Koonce blocked a Grizzly jumper at the other end while assisting on a Riniker layup that put CMU ahead 5-0.
 
The Mavs went on to gradually build a 25-16 lead and then went on a 10-0 run between the 9:27 and 7:09 marks of the first half, hitting on all four shots, two of which were 3-pointers from Riniker and Elijah Knudsen.
 
The Mavs led 51-30 at the half and extended the lead to 34 (68-34) at the first media timeout of the second half before Riniker put the Mavs up 36 (75-39) with just over 12 minutes to go as CMU cruised to the 28-point win.
 
Luke Williams scored 15 points to lead the Grizzlies, who have dropped eight of their last nine.
 
CMU will now head to Las Vegas, Nevada to wrap up the 2023 portion of the season with two games at the High Desert Classic.  The first of those two comes against fifth-ranked West Texas A&M in a key South Central Regional clash at Noon PST (1 p.m. Mountain) on Monday afternoon.