GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. –   All eyes in the RMAC – and plenty around the country – will be on Brownson Arena this weekend.

Colorado Mesa plays host to the top four schools in the RMAC for the conference tournament semifinals on Friday at 5 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., followed by the championship game on Saturday at 6 p.m. Fort Lewis, Black Hills State and Colorado School of Mines are the other three teams heading to Grand Junction. Brownson Arena will host the Saturday night championship game regardless of whether or not CMU is playing in it.

This won't be just any conference tournament. This year's final four can lay a claim to being the most stacked conference tournament field both in Division II this season and in the history of the RMAC. All four teams are currently ranked in the top 16 in the nation according to the NABC Coaches Poll. All four teams will enter the tournament with 25 or more wins and fewer than five losses. More than one of these teams are still in the conversation to be the No. 1 seed in the South Central Regional and host the first three rounds of the NCAA Tournament.

The tournament field includes three players (CMU's Blaise Threatt, Fort Lewis's Akuel Kot and Black Hills State's Joel Scott) on the Bevo Francis Award Watchlist, which essentially means they are currently considered to be three of the top 50 basketball players in the country across all of Division II, Division III, NAIA and junior college associations.

Bracket Check
As expected, all four top seeds held serve on their home court in the quarterfinals. Here are the results of Tuesday's quarterfinal games, with each team's tournament seed listed first and any national ranking in parentheses:

No. 1 (#14) Colorado Mesa 82, No. 8 MSU Denver 72
No. 2 (#10 Fort Lewis 96, No. 7 Regis 89
No. 3 (#16) Black Hills State 80, No. 6 Westminster 69
No. 4 (#13) Colorado School of Mines 87, No. 5 Chadron State 68

Colorado Mesa will play Colorado School of Mines in the opening game on Friday at 5 p.m. Fort Lewis and Black Hills State will clash in the second semifinal at 7:30 p.m., with the winners playing in the championship on Saturday night at 6 p.m.

Hang the Banner
Colorado Mesa earned the top seed in the RMAC Tournament on the final day of the regular season by finishing tied with Fort Lewis for the best conference record but winning the tiebreaker thanks to a head-to-head win over the Skyhawks. Although CMU is the No. 1 seed, the Mavericks are officially regular season co-champions with Fort Lewis.

This season marks the 12^th time that Colorado Mesa has won at least a share of the RMAC regular-season title, but only the third since 2000. The Mavericks won outright conference titles in 1976, 1977, 1984, 1985, 1995, 1999, 2010 and 2021, and were conference co-champions in 1978, 1991, 1994 and now 2023.

Winner Winner
The Mavericks were well-represented in the RMAC's announcement of its all-conference teams and special award winners on Wednesday.

Redshirt sophomore guard Mac Riniker was honored as the RMAC Defensive Player of the Year and Mavericks head coach Mike DeGeorge won his second RMAC Coach of the Year award in the past three seasons, while the CMU duo of Blaise Threatt and Trevor Baskin earned First Team All-Conference recognition. But they will be far from the only honorees on the court this weekend.

Black Hills State boasts the RMAC's now two-time reigning Player of the Year in forward Joel Scott. The other two teams each garnered a pair of first-team selections, with Akuel Kot and JaQuaylon Mays making the cut for Fort Lewis and Brendan Sullivan and Adam Thistlewood earning selections for Colorado School of Mines. In total, seven of the 10 RMAC first-team members will participate in the RMAC Tournament semifinals this weekend.

Season Series
A big reason why CMU was able to make a late charge for the title and top seed is the Mavericks' record against elite opponents. The Mavs are a combined 3-1 against the other teams remaining in the tournament, which is the best winning percentage out of the four schools.

Colorado Mesa split the season series with semifinal opponent Colorado School of Mines, with the road team winning both meetings. The Mavericks played Black Hills State and Fort Lewis only one time apiece this season, winning on the road against both teams. The wins over BHSU, Fort Lewis and Mines give the Mavericks three national top-15 road wins on the season. The head-to-head win over Fort Lewis was especially important as it gave CMU the tiebreaker to host the tournament this weekend.

Fort Lewis has a 3-2 record against the other tournament participants. The Skyhawks announced their presence on a national stage by beating Black Hills State, who was ranked No. 3 at the time, twice in a seven-day span. Fort Lewis also has a road win over Mines, but home losses to CMU and to Mines on the final day of the regular season opened the door for the Mavs to take a share of the conference title.

Black Hills State is 2-3 against the other top teams. The Yellow Jackets started the season 21-1 with the home loss to CMU as their only blemish and spent much of the season ranked in the top five in the country. But a late slide saw BHSU lose three of its final five conference games, including two against semifinal opponent Fort Lewis. The Yellow Jackets did play well against Mines, pulling out an overtime win on the road and then thumping the Orediggers by 19 points at home.

Colorado School of Mines is 2-4 against the other three semifinalists. The other three programs in the tournament have accounted for all four Oredigger losses this season. But Mines has still pulled out some big wins, including one apiece over each of the conference co-champions. Mines lost to both CMU and Fort Lewis at home but beat each of those teams on the road, which is especially interesting considering that the Orediggers will likely be on the road for the rest of the season. Mines has also lost twice this season to Black Hills State.

Regional Rankings
On Wednesday, the NCAA released its final regional rankings before Selection Sunday this weekend to give teams an idea where they stand in the postseason picture.

Nothing changed for CMU, which remained in the same No. 3 position as last week, trailing Fort Lewis and West Texas A&M. Fort Lewis maintained its No. 1 spot largely due to the Skyhawks' combined 3-0 record over No. 4 Angelo State and No. 5 Black Hills State.

Colorado School of Mines comes in at No. 6, and the top six are virtual locks for the NCAA tournament. A quartet of Lone Star Conference schools will scrap it out for the final two regional berths: No. 7 Lubbock Christian, No. 8 Texas A&M-Kingsville, No. 9 St. Edward's and No. 10 Texas A&M International.

All four teams remaining in the RMAC Tournament are regionally ranked, but with the Lone Star tournament starting Thursday, there is a possibility that an unranked team could go on a run and win the conference tournament and the automatic NCAA bid that comes with it. If that were to happen, there would likely be only one spot left for those four schools to fight over.

Fort Lewis and West Texas A&M are the most likely destinations to host the South Central regional based on these rankings from the NCAA, depending on how each does in their respective conference tournaments. The Mavericks do have an outside shot to host the regional being situated at No. 3, but would need an RMAC Tournament title and likely some Lone Star upsets to do so.

Tournament History
Colorado Mesa has been pretty good in the RMAC Tournament under head coach Mike DeGeorge. The Mavericks won the tournament as the No. 4 seed in 2020 and then ran the table the following year to win from the No. 1 seed in 2021.

Black Hills State is the defending tournament champion, with the Yellow Jackets topping sixth-seeded Regis in the final as the 2022 No. 1 seed.

The pair of tournament titles under DeGeorge are the first two in program history for CMU, which had been 0-7 all-time in the tournament championship game prior to 2020. As a matter of fact, CMU holds the dubious distinction of having the most all-time RMAC championship game losses, although the silver lining is that the Mavs have the second-most appearances in the finals of any school with nine. MSU Denver has been the historically dominant team, holding conference records with 11 titles and 13 finals appearances. The Mavericks eliminated MSU Denver, this year's No. 8 seed, in the quarterfinals.

Fort Lewis has four tournament championships, the second-most titles among current RMAC institutions. The Skyhawks most recently won in 2016 and lost in the championship game in 2017 and 2018. Black Hills State's victory last season was the first RMAC Tournament championship in program history.

Colorado School of Mines will have revenge on their minds against the Mavericks, as the Orediggers were the losing team in both of CMU's victorious finals in 2020 and 2021. As a program, the Orediggers have won the tournament twice, most recently over Fort Lewis in 2017.

Like Father, Like Son
Trevor Baskin had to wait a little longer than he may have wanted, but he finally reached and blew past the 1,000-point mark for his collegiate career.

Baskin entered the RMAC quarterfinal with 999 career points and remained stuck on that total for over 13 minutes before hitting a layup to give the Mavs a 26-24 lead. After getting the milestone bucket, Baskin settled in to finish with 18 points on the night and 1,017 and counting for his career.

Baskin becomes the 20^th member of the 1,000-point club at CMU and the second new member this season after Blaise Threatt also passed the milestone earlier this year (Threatt is now at 1,160 points at counting). The Baskin family alone makes up 10 percent of that 20-man club, as Trevor's father Jon Baskin (1988-91) is the program's all-time leading scorer at 2,227 points and holds the school records for field goal percentage (73.9), free throws made (490) and field goals made (833). The elder Baskin is one of only three players to top 2,000 points in a Maverick uniform.

Mav Facts
Colorado Mesa has the top scoring defense in the RMAC, holding opponents to a league-low 65.6 points per game. The Mavericks join Black Hills State as one of two RMAC teams to shoot over 50 percent from the field and over 40 percent from three-point range.

Guard Blaise Threatt is a top-five scorer in the league, averaging 19 points per game, while Trevor Baskin adds 14.3 points and 7.3 rebounds per game and ranks third in the conference with 34 blocks. Newly minted RMAC Defensive Player of the Year Mac Riniker leads the conference in steals with 51 and also averages a block per game. The Mavericks have six players averaging over seven points per game this season, a stat that only Fort Lewis and Colorado School of Mines can match.

Colorado Mesa enters the semifinal round on a conference-high 10 game winning streak, matching its longest of the season. The Mavericks have won 20 of their past 21 games.

About Fort Lewis
The Fort Lewis Skyhawks are in the midst of a record-breaking season for their program, as they currently have the best single-season record in program history. The Skyhawks went from being picked fourth in the RMAC preseason poll (behind this weekend's other three participants) to a No. 1 South Central regional ranking and a current top-10 national ranking, with a season high of No. 5 in the country.

Fort Lewis has unearthed a star in junior guard Akuel Kot, who ranks fourth in all of Division II averaging 24.2 points per game. Kot has never failed to score in double figures this season and has gone off for 30 or more points six times, including a season-high of 45 against Texas-Permian Basin.

Led by Kot, Fort Lewis has the top scoring offense in the RMAC at 84.2 points per game. Fellow RMAC First Team All-Conference player JaQuaylon Mays chips in to score 11.8 points per game and also leads the team in rebounds (5.6 per game), assists (86) and steals (41). Senior center Brandon Boatwright and sixth man Obi Agbim both score around 10 points per game while Brendan La Rose has more blocked shots than anyone else in the tournament with 38.

If there is an area of concern for Fort Lewis, it's that the Skyhawks have the league's seventh-ranked scoring defense (allowing 73.6 points per game) while the tournament's other participants make up the league's top three. The Skyhawks have scored 93 points against Colorado School of Mines in an overtime game and 87 points against Black Hills State this season.

About Black Hills State
The preseason pick to win the conference after reaching the NCAA Tournament Final Four last season, Black Hills State looked every bit like a national contender as they won 21 of their first 22 games and climbed to No. 3 in the country. But the Yellow Jackets are somewhat limping into the tournament, losing three of their last five regular season games and slipping to third in the conference and No. 16 in the national rankings.

Make no mistake however, everyone knows how dangerous this Black Hills team is. It all starts with Joel Scott, who won his second consecutive RMAC Player of the Year award on Wednesday. Scott averages 22.8 points and 9.1 rebounds per game and ranks third and second, respectively, in those categories for the RMAC. No other player is in the league's top five in both. Scott has also had success against the league's top teams this year, scoring a season-high 31 points against CMU, 28 against Mines and 26 against Fort Lewis. He has the best field goal percentage in the league, making 62.2 percent of his attempts.

One of the most memorable RMAC moments in recent memory was Scott and Western Colorado's Matthew Ragsdale – who were high school teammates – each scoring over 50 points in the same game last season, with Ragsdale getting 53 points and Scott getting 50 and the win. After Ragsdale broke out to average 21.5 points per game at Western Colorado last season, he decided to join forces with his high school teammate and transfer to Black Hills State. No longer his team's primary scoring option, Ragsdale is averaging a more modest 13.8 points per game in 2022-23 but still shoots 50 percent from the field and 42 percent from deep.

As a team, the Yellow Jackets rank third in offense (82 ppg) and second in defense (allowing 67.8 ppg). They shoot league-highs at 50.6 percent from the field and 40.4 percent from three as a team while holding opponents to league-lows of 40.1 percent from the field and just 29.5 percent from beyond the arc.

About Colorado School of Mines
Operating like the well-oiled machines that their students design, Colorado School of Mines is a team that plays better than the sum of its parts. Mines hit a bump when they lost three out of five games (one apiece to the other three participants) but recovered to win four in a row heading into the tournament, including the rematch victory over Fort Lewis. As the No. 4 seed, Mines ended up right around its projected third-place finish. The Orediggers are ranked No. 13 in the country, vaulting past CMU and Black Hills thanks to the road ranked win over Fort Lewis.

The Orediggers' two First Team All-Conference players lead the way, as Adam Thistlewood averages 15.8 points and 6.5 rebounds per game while Brendan Sullivan contributes 13.5 and 3.6. Point guard Sam Beskind has 110 assists against just 47 turnovers, the best ratio in the conference. Mines can spread the load offensively, with seven players averaging more than 6.5 points per game.

Mines has the RMAC's second-ranked offense (82.9 ppg) and the third-ranked defense (allowing 68.8 ppg). In cumulative team statistics, the Orediggers are the top rebounding team in the league, grabbing 37.5 team rebounds per game, while also leading in team blocks (3.9 per game) and team assists (18.2 per game).

The Orediggers have topped 100 points in three RMAC games this season, but their two lowest scoring performances of the year have come against teams in the tournament field as CMU and Black Hills have each held them to 66 points.

Ticketing Info
The RMAC controls the ticketing process for the RMAC Tournament. Tickets can be purchased at this link or the link above: https://rmacsports.org/tournaments/?id=221

The RMAC's ticketing structure only has general admission seating, with no reserved seats. Season ticket holders are encouraged to get to the game as early as possible, since seats are first-come, first-serve and you will not be guaranteed your normal seats for the duration of the RMAC Tournament.