GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. – Colorado Mesa men's basketball embarks on its final road trip of the regular season looking to hold serve and maintain the possibility of hosting the RMAC tournament for the second straight year.
It's a two-horse race for the RMAC regular season title, with CMU and Fort Lewis both at 17-1 in RMAC play and with a healthy cushion on everybody else. However, Fort Lewis has the inside lane due to beating the Mavericks head-to-head earlier this year, so if both teams win out, it would be the Skyhawks that would host the tournament via tiebreakers in a direct inverse of what happened last season.
The Mavericks checked off two significant boxes last week by knocking off third place Colorado School of Mines and fifth place MSU Denver in Brownson Arena, both teams that appeared alongside CMU and Fort Lewis in the NCAA's preliminary regional rankings.
The final road trip of the season is set to be a grueling one – the Mavs will play three games in three states over the course of five days with matchups against New Mexico Highlands (Friday at 7 p.m.), CSU Pueblo (Saturday at 6 p.m.) and Westminster (next Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.). The games can be live streamed on the RMAC Network, followed along via live stats, or listened to on The Team 1340 AM/101.1 FM radio.
Looking Back
Colorado Mesa defeated then-No. 21 Colorado School of Mines and MSU Denver on back-to-back nights in Brownson Arena, sweeping the season series against both and creating more separation between the RMAC's top two and the middle of the pack.
RECAPS:
Colorado School of Mines |
MSU Denver
The Mavericks shot 59 percent from the field against Colorado School of Mines and hit 18 three-pointers, tying the single-game school record for the third time this season.
Owen Koonce led the way with 21 points on Friday while
Trevor Baskin recorded a 25-point, 12-rebound double-double on Saturday.
Isaac Jessup averaged 17.5 points per game, scoring 18 against Mines and 17 against the Roadrunners.
Baskin-Ball
Maverick redshirt junior
Trevor Baskin has made all sorts of headlines lately, both for his play last weekend and the subsequent recognition he has received.
Baskin was named the RMAC Defensive Player of the Week after averaging 21 points, nine rebounds, 5.5 assists and four blocks per game across the wins over Mines and MSU Denver. That honor came on the heels of Baskin being included in the Bevo Francis Award Top 50 Watchlist, an award handed out every year to the top non-Division I player in men's college basketball.
RMAC Player of the Week Release |
Bevo Francis Top 50 Release
So far in the 2023-24 season, Baskin is averaging 16.2 points (ninth in RMAC), 7.9 rebounds (third in RMAC), 3.8 assists (tied for fourth in RMAC), and 1.04 blocks per game (fifth in RMAC), leading the Mavericks in all four categories. Baskin, a First Team All-RMAC and Second Team All-Region selection a year ago, has seven double-doubles this season.
Take the Points
Colorado Mesa had a historically great weekend shooting free throws against Colorado School of Mines and MSU Denver. To say that the Mavericks, who were only a 70 percent free-throw shooting team entering the weekend, got hot from the foul stripe in last weekend's games would be an understatement.
Colorado Mesa went 10-for-10 from the line against Colorado School of Mines and 23-for-23 from the line against MSU Denver. The 23-for-23 performance set a new school record and RMAC record for the most makes in a single game without a miss. The previous school mark was a 17-for-17 performance against UCCS on March 3, 2020. The Mavericks did go 23-for-24 from the line during a March 2010 game against Winona State.
Trevor Baskin led the way in the record-breaking MSU Denver game by going 8-for-8 from the line.
Isaac Jessup (6-6),
Christopher Speller (4-4),
Owen Koonce (2-2),
Reece Johnson (2-2) and
Michael McCurry (1-1) also contributed to the team's 23-for-23 night.
The NCAA Division II record for most consecutive free throws made is 37, set by Southern Indiana over the course of three games from January 23-30, 2003. Colorado Mesa has made 302 of 419 free throw attempts overall this season, good for a 72.1 percentage as a team which ranks eighth out of 15 RMAC teams.
Standings Check
With two weekends left in the RMAC regular season, Colorado Mesa has clinched a top-three seed in the upcoming RMAC Tournament and can clinch a top-two seed with just one more win.
The chasing pack continues to be bunched up, with only four games separating fifth place and 13
th place in the conference standings. All four of CMU's remaining opponents are currently outside the top eight qualifying places, but only one (Westminster) is mathematically eliminated from climbing back into the top eight.
Here is a look at the full RMAC standings entering this weekend's games:
| School |
RMAC Record |
Overall |
| #3 Fort Lewis |
17-1 |
22-2 |
| #6 Colorado Mesa |
17-1 |
21-3 |
| #21 Colorado School of Mines |
14-4 |
20-6 |
| Black Hills State |
11-7 |
13-11 |
| MSU Denver |
10-8 |
16-8 |
| Regis |
10-9 |
13-12 |
| Chadron State |
8-10 |
11-13 |
| South Dakota Mines |
8-10 |
10-14 |
| CSU Pueblo |
7-11 |
11-13 |
| New Mexico Highlands |
7-11 |
10-13 |
| UCCS |
7-12 |
11-14 |
| Western Colorado |
6-12 |
9-15 |
| Adams State |
6-12 |
8-16 |
| Colorado Christian |
5-13 |
8-15 |
| Westminster |
3-15 |
7-17 |
Fort Lewis hosts the South Dakota schools, taking on Black Hills State this Friday and South Dakota Mines on Saturday, but head on the road for the final week of the season against Colorado School of Mines and MSU Denver on March 1 and 2.
Up and Good
Despite Colorado Mesa's willingness to shoot a significant number of three-pointers per game and ride with the ebbs and flows of that percentage, the Mavericks still have remarkable efficiency, particularly among their players who get looks inside. Colorado Mesa features three players in the RMAC's top six in total field goal percentage so far in the 2023-24 season.
Mac Riniker leads the conference with a .638 field goal percentage, making 111 of his 174 attempts. Not far behind are
Trevor Baskin in fifth (.561 percentage) and
Owen Koonce in sixth (.542 percentage).
Baskin shot 14-for-19 over the weekend, going 6-for-8 against Mines and 8-for-11 against MSU Denver. Koonce shot 8-for-10 from the field while scoring a team-high 21 points in the win over Colorado School of Mines and shot 4-for-9 against the Roadrunners.
Regional Rankings
The NCAA released its first regional rankings of the season, a look at the teams in contention for the NCAA Tournament by region. For the first rankings, the NCAA releases the list of teams in alphabetical order without seeding them, before assigning seed numbers for two subsequent weekly regional rankings before the NCAA Tournament selection show.
For the South Central region, the 10 alphabetical teams included are as follows: Angelo State, Cameron, Colorado School of Mines, Colorado Mesa, DBU, Eastern New Mexico, Fort Lewis, Lubbock Christian, MSU Denver and West Texas A&M.
The D2CSC Regional Rankings, which have been distributed by the media organization weekly throughout the season but do not factor in to the NCAA's rankings, feature West Texas A&M at No. 1, followed by Fort Lewis, Dallas Baptist, CMU and Mines in the top five. Lubbock Christian, Angelo State, MSU Denver, Eastern New Mexico and Cameron round out spots 6-10.
In the Polls
Colorado Mesa jumped up another three spots to No. 6 in the NABC Coaches Poll after their two wins, including a triumph over a nationally-ranked opponent in Colorado School of Mines.
The Mavericks are 19-3 with three quality losses, as unanimous national No. 1 West Texas A&M, No. 3 Fort Lewis and No. 8 DBU are the only three teams to defeat CMU this year. DBU fell four spots in the poll after suffering a Lone Star Conference loss to Texas A&M International last weekend. This week's poll marks the first time that DBU, which defeated CMU in the opening game of the season, has been ranked behind the Mavericks since the preseason poll.
Aside from CMU and Fort Lewis, the RMAC's third nationally ranked program, Colorado School of Mines, remained at No. 21 despite the loss to CMU. The South Central region's other conference, the Lone Star, features West Texas A&M and DBU in the top 10 while Lubbock Christian is receiving votes.
The D2CSC Media Poll has the Mavericks at No. 13, trailing No. 5 Fort Lewis and leading No. 22 Mines among ranked RMAC schools.
The Mavericks were picked to win the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference in a preseason poll of the conference's head coaches. The Mavericks received eight of a possible 15 first-place votes and finished with 186 points to top the poll. Fort Lewis, who shared the regular season title with CMU and won the RMAC Tournament last year, got four first-place votes and 177 points. Colorado School of Mines received three first-place votes and 169 points while Black Hills State and Chadron State rounded out the top five.
About New Mexico Highlands
The New Mexico Highlands Cowboys are 10-13 overall and 7-11 in conference play. The Cowboys collected two huge conference wins last weekend to pull themselves into the thick of the RMAC Tournament qualification race, as Highlands is now tied with CSU Pueblo for ninth in the RMAC with the top eight teams reaching the postseason.
Highlands went on the road and defeated Chadron State 90-82 and Colorado Christian 101-93 last weekend after losing eight of their previous nine matches. That extended skid started with a loss to Colorado Mesa in Brownson Arena back on January 6 in which the Cowboys led by nine at halftime but were outscored 67-36 in the second half of a 94-72 loss.
The Cowboys have a pair of double-digit scorers in Kenard Richardson, who averages 12 points per game in a sixth-man role for NMHU, and Kyrie Thomas, who scores 10.9 points per game. Senior center Ezichi Kalu ranks fourth in the RMAC in rebounding with 7.5 boards per game and second in the conference with 1.2 blocks per game (27 total). New Mexico Highlands averages 76.5 points per game (eighth in the RMAC) and gives up 78.9 points per game (12
th in the RMAC).
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 57-20 edge over New Mexico Highlands all-time. Colorado Mesa has won the last five matchups between the teams including the win earlier this season. Colorado Mesa defeated the Cowboys by 31 points in New Mexico last year.
About CSU Pueblo
The ThunderWolves of CSU Pueblo are 11-13 overall and tied with New Mexico Highlands for ninth place in the RMAC standings with a 7-11 conference record. Like Highlands, CSU Pueblo defeated Colorado Christian (95-87) and Chadron State (80-75) last weekend to breathe some life back into its season. Prior to those two games, CSU Pueblo had lost six in a row, including to Western Colorado and Adams State.
In the previous matchup with Colorado Mesa, CSU Pueblo held a two-point lead at halftime but eventually lost by 12 points in a 94-82 victory for the Mavericks. In that matchup, the Pack received 20 points from Armon Muldrew and 18 points apiece from De'Shaun Cooper and Brevin Walter.
Walter, a first-year ThunderWolves player who transferred from South Dakota Mines, is sixth in the RMAC in scoring currently with his 17.1 points per game pace. Senior guard Makiah Morris averages 14.9 points per game and ranks fifth in the RMAC with 7.2 rebounds per game. He has five double-doubles this season, including two in CSU Pueblo's last three games.
Head Coach Matt Hammer is in his fifth season leading the Pack. 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 seven straight matchups coinciding with head coach
Mike DeGeorge's tenure.
About Westminster
At 7-17 overall and 3-15 in RMAC play, the Westminster Griffins are the only RMAC team so far which is mathematically eliminated from postseason contention and finishing in the conference's top eight places. The Griffins went 0-1 last week, losing 92-72 to MSU Denver.
Westminster will also have the same three games in five days stretch as CMU, traveling to play CSU Pueblo and Highlands on the same Friday and Saturday as the Mavericks before returning home to host CMU. The Mavericks won the previous matchup earlier in the season, handling the Griffins 81-62 on February 1 in a game that saw CMU tie a school record for three-point makes and set a school record for three-point attempts.
The Griffins are led by senior forward Trey Wood and his 13.8 points and 5.8 rebounds per game. Junior Drake Middleton is Westminster's fifth-leading scorer and second-leading rebounder, but he achieved season-highs in both points (18) and rebounds (10) along with his only double-double of the season thus far in the previous game against Colorado Mesa.
Veteran head coach Norm Parrish is in his ninth season at Westminster, winning RMAC Coach of the Year honors in 2017-18. Unfortunately, that team was ineligible for postseason play since Westminster was still in its transition period from NAIA to Division II. The Griffins have not qualified for the RMAC Tournament since becoming fully D-II eligible in 2019-20. Prior to Westminster, Parrish was an assistant coach at Division I Hawaii and Utah and was a decorated head coach at Salt Lake City Community College for two decades.
The Mavericks hold slim leads of 11-9 in the all-time series and 8-7 in RMAC contests against Westminster. The Griffins handed CMU one of its three RMAC losses last year with a 70-63 victory in Salt Lake City.
