GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. –   With just two weeks left in the regular season, Colorado Mesa men's basketball is still alive for an RMAC regular-season title and is coming off a double serving of revenge.  

The Mavericks beefed up their credentials by defeating two teams that they had lost to earlier in the season, beating then-No. 13 Colorado School of Mines 87-66 and coming back to beat MSU Denver 71-64. Blaise Threatt led the way with 24 points against Mines and Trevor Baskin recorded a 21-point, 11-rebound double-double in the win over the Roadrunners.

RECAPS: Colorado School of Mines | MSU Denver

Up ahead this weekend, the Mavs will host New Mexico Highlands on Friday and CSU Pueblo on Saturday. Both games can be streamed on the RMAC Network or listened to on The Team 101.1 FM/1340 AM radio.

Regional Rankings
The NCAA released its first regional rankings update on Wednesday as a preview for potential postseason seeding. Since 2020, the first release has listed the 10 teams in alphabetical order rather than specifically ranking them 1-10.

Colorado Mesa made the cut, along with fellow RMAC schools Black Hills State, Colorado School of Mines and Fort Lewis. Six Lone Star schools made the initial 10-team list: Angelo State, Eastern New Mexico, Lubbock Christian, St. Edward's, Texas A&M-Kingsville and West Texas A&M.

When The Lights Are Brightest
This year's CMU basketball team doesn't back down from a challenge and always shows up ready to play in big games. The 21-point win over Colorado School of Mines was the third win on the road against a top-15 opponent this season for the Mavericks.

Previously, Colorado Mesa defeated No. 3 Black Hills State 80-69 on January 13 and then-No. 12 Fort Lewis 75-68 on January 20. Colorado Mesa is the only team to defeat each program on its home floor so far this season (Black Hills State is 9-1 at home, Fort Lewis is 10-1).

The Mavericks are 5-1 against teams in the inaugural NCAA Regional Rankings and are 4-0 on the road against those teams.

Standings Check
With the 2-0 week, including a win over Colorado School of Mines, the Mavericks moved up to third place in the RMAC standings. CMU has officially clinched a spot in the eight-team RMAC tournament and can finish no lower than fifth in the conference.

A major development in the race for the regular-season title occurred on Monday when Fort Lewis defeated Black Hills State. BHSU entered the game as the No. 2 team in the country in the NBCA Coaches Poll and prior to Monday, had only lost to CMU this season.

The door is potentially open for the Mavericks to swoop in for a regular season championship with CMU sitting a game behind the top two teams. Crucially, Fort Lewis plays at Black Hills State on Friday and closes the season at home vs. Colorado School of Mines on Feb. 25.
Here are the current top eight teams in the 15-team RMAC:
 

School	RMAC	Pct.	Overall	Pct.	Streak
#2 Black Hills State	16-2	.889	22-2	.917	L1
#9 Fort Lewis	16-2	.889	22-2	.917	W7
#17 Colorado Mesa	15-3	.833	20-4	.833	W5
#19 Colorado School of Mines	14-4	.778	20-4	.833	L1
Chadron State	13-5	.722	16-8	.667	W8
Westminster	9-9	.500	10-14	.417	L1
New Mexico Highlands	8-10	.444	10-14	.417	W1
Regis	8-11	.421	11-14	.440	W1

 
In the final four games of the regular season, the Mavs face two current top-half opponents – New Mexico Highlands at home this Friday and Westminster at home on Wednesday, February 22.

Tough to Stop
Colorado Mesa presents a unique challenge for teams as they rank in the Top 25 nationally in multiple categories on both the offensive and defensive sides of the ball.

The Mavericks are one of the most efficient offensive teams in the country, ranking 13^th in Division II with a 50.1 percent team field goal percentage. The Mavs are 10^th in Division II in three-point percentage, with 40.5 percent of their attempts from deep rippling the net.

Paired with that offense is a stingy defense. Colorado Mesa has the best scoring defense in the RMAC, allowing only 64.8 points per game, which ranks 22^nd nationally. The Mavs also lead the conference and rank 23^rd in Division II with 8.8 steals per game. CMU also does a great job of controlling the glass, as its rebound margin (the average difference per game between CMU rebounds and opponent rebounds) of +6.7 ranks 17^th in all of Division II.

Top Fifty
Redshirt sophomore guard Blaise Threatt received more national recognition as he was named to the Bevo Francis Top 50 Watch List.

The Bevo Francis Award is chosen by Small College Basketball and the National Awards Committee and is presented to the best non-Division I college basketball player (comprising Division II, Division III, NAIA and junior college associations).

"Congratulations to the 50 players on this prestigious list," Small College Basketball founder John McCarthy said. "There are approximately 13,000-16,000 players that compete at the small college levels; as such, this is a very elite list. Thank you to our National Awards Committee for all of their insight and guidance on the creation of this list."

Threatt is joined in the top 50 by two other RMAC players – Akuel Kot of Fort Lewis and Joel Scott of Black Hills State. Along with Threatt, Trevor Baskin made the initial watchlist of 100 players released on January 15.

The committee will trim the watchlist down to 25 players on March 15, three finalists on April 1 and a winner on April 3.

Perfectly Peaking
Colorado Mesa has currently won 15 of its past 16 games since losing the first two conference games of the season. The Mavericks were 5-3 at one point and now sit at 20-4. The Mavericks have won five in a row after having a 10-game win streak interrupted by a January 24 loss to Westminster.

This is the third-longest streak with no more than one loss in NCAA program history. The Mavericks won 21 of 22 games in 2020-21, a season in which they earned a No. 1 national ranking for the first time in school history. CMU also won 20 of 21 games during the 2009-10 season.

Leaderboard Watch
Blaise Threatt has taken his offensive game to another level over the past few weeks. Threatt ranks fifth in the RMAC in scoring at 18.3 points per game while Trevor Baskin cracks the top 15 at 14.0 points per game. The roles are reversed on the rebounding leaderboard, with Baskin sixth in the conference at 7.5 per game and Threatt 15^th at 5.8 per game.

Both players have been incredibly efficient, as Baskin ranks fourth in the RMAC with a .580 field goal percentage with Threatt in sixth with a .532 percentage. Threatt is also shooting 49.4 percent from three-point range.

Colorado Mesa leads the conference in steals per game as a team, so it's no surprise that Mac Riniker tops the individual count with 44 total steals and 1.8 steals per game. Threatt has recorded 41 steals to tie for second place with Westminster's Taylor Miller. Baskin ranks second in the conference in blocked shots, with 29 total rejections and an average of 1.2 per game.

About New Mexico Highlands
The New Mexico Highlands Cowboys are 10-14 overall but have won four of their past seven games to climb up into seventh in the RMAC standings with an 8-10 conference record. Last weekend at home, the Cowboys lost to Chadron State by 22 on Friday but rebounded to beat Colorado Christian by 16 the following day.

New Mexico Highlands is getting a fantastic season from transfer guard Dante Moses. The senior, who has spent time at two junior colleges, Division I Radford and Division II Angelo State, is the second-leading scorer in the RMAC and third-leading scorer in Division II at 24.0 points per game. Moses has gone for over 30 points eight times this season and over 40 points on two occasions.

Against South Dakota Mines on December 17, Moses scored the most points (48) and made the most field goals (21) of any RMAC player in a single game this season. Moses also leads the team with 6.3 rebounds per game (ranking 10^th in the RMAC) and 2.3 assists per game. The Mavericks defense held Moses relatively in check, as he scored 17 points on 7 of 15 shooting when the two teams first met on December 31. Moses has exceeded that point total in nine of the 10 games since.

While Moses looks like a bona fide all-conference player, Highlands has been waiting for another player to step up alongside him all season. No other Cowboy is averaging more than eight points per game and only four players are above six points per game. Moses is also the only NMHU player with over five rebounds per game.

New Mexico Highlands ranks sixth in the RMAC in both team field-goal percentage and opposing field-goal percentage, but they have struggled to shoot the three (15^th in the RMAC at 29.1 percent) and rebound (grabbing the third-fewest in the RMAC at 31.5 per game while allowing the second-most at 36.8 per game). One bright spot is junior Ezichi Kalu, who leads the conference with 1.4 blocks per game.

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.  

About CSU Pueblo
The ThunderWolves of CSU Pueblo currently sit at 11-13 overall and 7-11 in the RMAC. They entered the week as one of five teams to be tied for the No. 8 seed in the RMAC Tournament (Regis now has the No. 8 seed by half a game after winning on Tuesday). Last week, CSU Pueblo defeated Colorado Christian 77-58 and pushed fifth-place Chadron State to overtime before losing 89-85.

Sophomore forward and Colorado Springs native Isaiah Thompson is the RMAC's leading rebounder at 9.5 per game and also averages 11.5 points per game. Thompson has nine double-doubles on the season, including in the past four games. Over the past two weeks, Thompson has put up 19 points and 16 rebounds against a top-10 Fort Lewis team, 17 points and 16 rebounds against Colorado Christian and 18 points and 13 rebounds against Chadron State.

Guard Lian Romero is the ThunderWolves' leading scorer at 13.4 points per game. CSU Pueblo has a total of four scorers in double figures with junior guard Makiah Morris at 10.9 and senior forward Meekness Payne at 10.7 points per game. Payne did well in the first meeting against CMU, scoring 16 points on 7 of 11 shooting for his second-highest scoring output of the season. Ramiro, Thompson and Morris all had 10 points or less.

CSU Pueblo is a good defensive team with the third-ranked scoring defense in the RMAC at 68.3 points per game, trailing Colorado Mesa and Black Hills State. They are particularly good against the three, holding opponents to just 33 percent from deep, the second-lowest mark in the conference. The ThunderWolves only have the 12^th-ranked offense, scoring 72 points per game.
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.

Series History
Colorado Mesa has a 45-24 edge all-time against CSU Pueblo. The Mavericks have been victorious in the past five meetings, including a 10-point home victory last season and a seven-point victory in Pueblo back on December 30. The Mavs have been tough to beat at Brownson Arena, going 27-8 all-time in Grand Junction. This season's road victory edged the Mavericks above .500 in Pueblo, as they are 16-15 as the away team.

The Mavs have handled New Mexico Highlands for the most part, leading that all-time series 55-20. The Cowboys had their greatest period of dominance in the series recently, winning five straight matchups from 2016-2019, but Colorado Mesa has won the past three, all by 17 points or more. Earlier this season, the Mavericks defeated NMHU 84-53 on New Year's Eve, holding the Cowboys to 53 points and 33.3 percent shooting from the field. That remains the lowest point total of the season for New Mexico Highlands.

In the Polls
Colorado Mesa is ranked No. 17 in the NABC Coaches Poll and No. 18 in the D2SIDA Media Poll, the first time in the 2022-23 season that the Mavs have been top-20 in both polls.  

Both polls have four RMAC teams ranked, with CMU as the third-highest of the four. The Coaches Poll has Black Hills State at No. 2, Fort Lewis at No. 9 and Colorado School of Mines at No. 19 behind CMU while the Media Poll lists Black Hills State at No. 3, Fort Lewis at No. 11 and Mines at No. 25. Neither poll is factoring in BHSU's Monday loss to Fort Lewis.

Colorado Mesa moved up a spot to third in the D2SIDA South Central Regional Rankings. The RMAC has four of the top five with Black Hills, Fort Lewis and CMU occupying the top three and Mines at No. 5. The Mavericks have beaten the No. 1 (Black Hills State), No. 2 (Fort Lewis), No. 7 (Texas-A&M Kingsville) and No. 9 (St. Edward's) teams in the rankings. They have both beaten and lost to No. 5 (Colorado School of Mines).

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.