Grand Junction, Colo. - The Colorado Mesa University Men's Basketball Team would attempt to battle back from a deficit as large as 22 points in tonight's game but fall short as the Mavericks were defeated in their conference opener of the 2024-2025 season to the University of Colorado Colorado Springs Mountain Lions by a score of 63-58 in Brownson Arena.
With this loss the Mountain Lions snapped the Mavs' four-game winning streak as CMU now moves to 4-3 on the season and 0-1 in the RMAC. UCCS improves to 5-2 with a 1-0 record in the RMAC.
Despite the loss, the Mavs collected career highs from multiple players on the team with Ty Allred scoring 27 points for his new career best. He also brought down nine rebounds to match his career high and tally four steals. Harvey White dished out eight assists in the game for a new career and team high this season.
The only other player to score in the double digits for CMU was Will Mortimore with 10 points.
The Mountain Lions featured three players in the double digits with William Becker leading the team with 20 points on 9-9 shooting. He was be accompanied by Jezza McKenzie who scored 13 points and Derek Pranger who scored 10 points to lead the team.
From the start of tonight's game, CMU never collected a lead in the entire 40 minutes as they went down 10-0 early in the game just four minutes in. Early foul trouble hurt the Mavs as well as Center Will Mortimore would collect two personal fouls within the first two minutes of the game. The Mavs wouldn't break into the double digits until roughly 13 minutes into the game when they were down 22-11.
They closed the lead to only nine by halftime with the score 32-23.
What made the difference in the first half was the Mountain Lions' 18 points in the paint compared to the Mavs' six. Becker would score 11 of his 20 points in that half with six of them coming courtesy of dunks. Allred matched him with 11 points for the Mavs.
Into the second half, similar to how the beginning of the game started, CMU fell into a hole quickly as the Mountain Lions used a 15-4 run to collect that lead up to 22 points all in less than five minutes.
The Mavs responded with a run of their own shortly after to mount their comeback.
Over the next nine minutes, CMU would go on a 21-8 run to close the lead down to nine points and break a double-digit lead that that Mountain Lions had sustained since the beginning of the second half.
CMU brought the game as close as three points with less than a minute to play but wouldn't have enough time to tie the game up after having to foul UCCS to stop the clock. Xavier Martinez knocked down two free throws to seal the win as time expired.
The Mavs outscored the Mountain Lions 35-31 in the second half but ran out of time in their comeback attempt.
In the game CMU shot 41.7% from the field but struggled from both the three-point line and the free throw line, shooting 28.6% from beyond the arc and only 40% from the stripe.
With the new RMAC schedule in place this season that features a day of rest in between contests, CMU will now get tomorrow off before returning to the court on Saturday at 3 p.m. when they take on the Cougars of Colorado Christian University. Saturday's game will follow the conclusion of the Women's Game at 1 p.m. Tickets for the game can be purchased in person or at cmumavericks.com/tickets. Streaming for the game will occur on the RMAC Network per usual with radio broadcasting coming from The Team 1340 AM.
