GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. – Coming off a conference win and a 1-1 trip to Las Vegas before the holidays, the Colorado Mesa men's basketball team will enter the New Year with a 9-2 record ahead of two RMAC home games in the coming weekend.

The Mavericks, ranked No. 14 in the NABC Coaches Poll and tied for No. 10 in the D2SIDA Media Poll, have a perfect 5-0 conference record after beating Adams State in Alamosa 99-71 back on December 15 prior to the Las Vegas trip.

CMU will take the court for the first time in 2024 with a home game on Friday against CSU Pueblo, 17 days after their most recent contest. The Mavs will face New Mexico Highlands on Saturday in Brownson Arena, with tip-off for both games scheduled for 7:30 p.m. after the conclusion of the women's game.

Looking Back
The Mavericks scored a season-high 99 points in a comfortable win over Adams State on December 15 to improve to 5-0 in the RMAC before losing to No. 5 West Texas A&M and defeating Simon Fraser in Las Vegas on December 18 and 19.

RECAPS: Adams State | No. 5 West Texas A&M | Simon Fraser

The Mavs used a balanced team effort in the win over Adams State, with Mac Riniker leading the way with 20 points and seven rebounds while Owen Koonce scored 18 points, five rebounds, four steals and three assists. CMU fell by 15 points to a top-five Buffs squad despite 29 points and 10 rebounds from Trevor Baskin, but the Mavs rebounded with a 14-point win over Simon Fraser, led by a career-high 27 points from Koonce.

Behind The Arc Battle
Friday's matchup will feature the RMAC's most prolific three-point shooting offense against its stingiest three-point defense.

Colorado Mesa shoots a high volume of threes. Despite ranking 12^th out of 15 RMAC teams in three-point field-goal percentage at 33 percent, CMU leads the RMAC with 10.5 made threes per game, a key opponent of the high-octane offense that ranks second in the conference by scoring 84.6 points per game.

The Mavs will be challenged by a CSU Pueblo defense that clamps down at the three-point line. In 11 games, the ThunderWolves are holding opponents to a 28.7 percentage from deep (70-244). Pueblo's numbers are slightly less stellar against RMAC opponents, however, with conference teams shooting 37.9 percent from three against the ThunderWolves. CSUP's overall stats are boosting by strong nonconference performances against Alaska (who went 2-19 from three), Multnomah (1-22) and Oklahoma Panhandle (4-19).

Schedule Strength
There's no question that the Mavericks have played a challenging schedule so far.

The No. 14 Mavs are 9-2 overall on the season, with their two losses coming to teams currently ranked No. 4 (West Texas A&M) and No. 6 (DBU) in the NABC Coaches Poll. Colorado Mesa also has road wins over a team that was ranked inside the top 10 at the time (No. 8 MSU Denver) and a 10-3 team that is 5-1 in RMAC play (Colorado School of Mines).

Out of the Mavericks' six non-conference opponents, all of whom are NCAA Division II institutions, four currently have winning records and three (WTA&M, DBU, St. Edward's) have nine wins or more. In addition, four of CMU's initial five RMAC games have come against teams that were picked in the top half of the 15-team conference in the RMAC Preseason Coaches Poll.

Stat Watch
Colorado Mesa has three players in the RMAC's top 14 in scoring, with Trevor Baskin ranked seventh at 16.8 ppg, Mac Riniker ranked 12^th at 14.9 ppg and Owen Koonce in 14^th at 14.4 ppg. Baskin also ranks fourth in the RMAC with 8.5 rebounds per game.

The Mavericks are scoring 84.6 points per game as a team, the second-highest total in the RMAC, and allowing 74.5 points per game. CMU's scoring margin of +10.1 is the second-highest in the RMAC behind Fort Lewis.

Reunion Time
New Mexico Highlands' upcoming visit means a return to Grand Junction for current Cowboys head coach Mike Dominguez, who made a name for himself as a CMU player.

Dominguez became the first Division II All-American in any sport in school history during a dominant 2009-10 season, winning RMAC Player of the Year and Central Region Player of the Year as the Mavericks won 23 games and earn their first NCAA Tournament win as a program. Dominguez averaged 21.4 points per game.

After playing professionally overseas, Dominguez had six-year stint as a coach for the Mavs under former head coaches Jim Heaps and Andy Shantz, who made Dominguez his recruiting coordinator and lead assistant. A New Mexico native, Dominguez then departed CMU to spend two years as the associate head coach at New Mexico Highlands before taking over as head coach, a position he has held since the 2019-20 season.

Entering this weekend's games, Dominguez is 50-46 all-time as a head coach at NMHU. He is 0-4 against Colorado Mesa as a head coach, but went 3-0 against CMU during his two-year stint as Highlands's lead assistant.

About CSU Pueblo
The ThunderWolves of CSU Pueblo enter 2024 with a 6-5 overall record and a 2-3 mark in the RMAC. Since starting the season 0-2 with a pair of losses to Lone Star opponents, the Pack have won six of their last nine, with two of the three losses coming by only two points. CSU Pueblo has a pair of wins over Alaska as well as victories over Multnomah, Oklahoma Panhandle State, Colorado Christian and Adams State.

Pueblo's RMAC losses have been an 84-82 loss to Chadron State, a 97-64 loss against then-No. 20 Fort Lewis and a 101-99 overtime setback against South Dakota Mines in its most recent RMAC game. Between a 103-97 win over Adams and the losses to Fort Lewis and SD Mines, CSU Pueblo has allowed 97 points or more in each of its last three games.

New addition Brevin Walter leads the ThunderWolves offensively, averaging 21.4 points per game, a total that would lead the RMAC if Walter had played enough games to qualify. Walter ranked fourth in the conference in 2022-23 with 20.3 points per game for South Dakota Mines before transferring to CSU Pueblo in the offseason. Walter has double figures in six of the seven games he has played in 2023-24, including 36-point explosions against Adams State and his former team, South Dakota Mines. Walter shoots 41 percent from the field, 29 percent from three and 87 percent from the line.

CSU Pueblo has three other double-digit scorers in senior Makiah Morris (13.8 ppg, 6.3 rpg), and juniors Daeyon James (12.3 ppg) and Armon Muldrew (10.6 ppg). The ThunderWolves have the fifth-ranked scoring offense in the RMAC at 79.0 points per game and have the sixth-ranked scoring defense at 72.4 points per game while ranking fifth in scoring margin (+6.6).

Head Coach Matt Hammer is in his fifth season leading the Pack. Hammer has a 44-69 record in four-plus years as the CSUP head coach. Prior to Pueblo, Hammer compiled a 118-43 record in five seasons at Sheridan College (NJCAA), where he was a two-time Region IX Coach of the Year.

Colorado Mesa leads the all-time series over Pueblo 46-24, and the Mavs have won six straight matchups coinciding with head coach Mike DeGeorge's tenure. The Mavericks played CSU Pueblo twice last season, winning 67-60 in Pueblo and 76-61 at Brownson Arena.

About New Mexico Highlands
The Cowboys of New Mexico Highlands are 6-5 on the season with a 3-3 record in the RMAC. Highlands has been up and down throughout the season, already having recorded three-game winning and losing streaks in 2023-24. In the RMAC, the Cowboys have beaten Colorado Christian, Chadron State and South Dakota Mines while losing to then-No. 20 Fort Lewis, Adams State and Black Hills State.

The Cowboys have some signature wins, handing No. 11 Angelo State its only loss of the season thus far and beating Chadron State by 14 points, but three of their five losses have come to teams with losing records, including to an Adams State team that beat Highlands for its only RMAC win so far. In its most recent game, New Mexico Highlands beat South Dakota Mines 66-55, snapping a three-game losing streak in the process.

Highlands is without the graduated Dante Moses, the RMAC's leading scorer last season at 24.5 points per game. Unlike last season, when no player other than Moses averaged more than 7.5 points per game, the Cowboys have a more balanced offensive attack, with five players currently averaging more than 7.5 points per game at present. Junior forward AC Curry leads NMHU with 10.3 points per game, followed closely by junior guard Kyrie Thomas at 10.2 points per game. Thomas scored a team-high 14 points in the win over Angelo State and a team-high 19 in the team's most recent game against SD Mines.

Ezichi Kalu, a 6-foot-11 center, remains one of the toughest post presences in the conference, leading the RMAC with 9.1 rebounds per game. Kalu has grabbed over 10 boards in six of 10 games this year, including double-doubles against Northern New Mexico and Colorado Christian. A year after leading the RMAC with 40 total blocks and 1.4 blocks per game in 2022-23, Kalu ranks fourth this year with 13 blocks while teammate Curry ranks fifth with 12.

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.

The Mavs hold a 56-20 edge over New Mexico Highlands all-time. Colorado Mesa has won the last four matchups between the teams, with CMU winning by 31 points in New Mexico last year and winning by eight points at home.

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.