Golden, Colo. - The Colorado Mesa University Men's Basketball Team would play to another tight loss this afternoon as they fell to the #10/11 Colorado School of Mines Orediggers in a 65-58 loss at Lockridge Arena for their final conference game of this first semester.
The Mavericks stay winless in conference play following today as they are now 4-6 overall while falling to 0-4 in the RMAC. Mines improves on the year moving to 7-1 overall, while staying undefeated in the RMAC at 3-0.
CMU will get their next attempt at a conference foe when they return to Brownson Arena on January 9 in 2025.
Leading the Mavs' offense in the game was the trio of Harvey White, Ty Allred and Will Mortimore who all three scored in double digits. White finished with 13 points with Allred dropping 12 himself. Mortimore finished with 11 points to round out the team.
Despite being guards, both Christopher Speller and Mason Honeyman were the team's leading rebounders with six apiece. Honeyman also collected four steals in the game for a new career high.
While the Mavs are typically a strong rebounding team, they were outrebounded in today's game 41-32, with the difference maker being the Orediggers' 17 offensive boards compared to the Mavs' 10.
Colorado Mesa also struggled from the three-point line as they were 2-12 in the game compared to Mines who finished 10-32.
In the first half alone, there were seven lead changes with neither team seeming to take control for a majority of the time. CMU led for roughly eight minutes of the half but never gathered a lead larger than six points. The same goes for Mines as they led for around six minutes of the half with a lead that only got as high as six points as well.
Ultimately after 20 minutes of play the game came to 26-25 in favor of the Orediggers at halftime with them clinging onto a one-point lead after a low scoring 20 minutes of play.
Mortimore, who's been providing the Mavs' large presence in the post recently, finished the first half with seven points to lead the team.
He was matched by Mines' Riley Schroeder who scored eight points in the half.
Similar to the first half, the second half followed the same tight script as both teams played close with the lead being traded back-and-forth multiple times. Mines, however, put the game out of reach when they scored seven points compared to the Mavs three in the final three minutes to give the Orediggers the seven point victory.
Mines' second half push can be credited in large part to one of the conference's top players, Majok Deng, who scored all of his 13 points in the second half alone to lead his team. Schroeder and Alex Romack also scored 10 points each to lead the team.
Following this weekend the Mavs will look to play their final two games of the 2024 calendar year when they fly down to San Antonio next week for the San Antonio River City Holiday Classic hosted by Pittsburg State. In the tournament, CMU will take on the University of Central Oklahoma on Tuesday the 17th at 4 p.m. and Pittsburg State University on Wednesday the 18th at 2 p.m. More information will be released on Monday regarding the tournament format and how to watch.
