GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — Let's get right to it: One win = RMAC championship.
If the Colorado Mesa women's basketball team wins its regular-season finale at 5:30 p.m. Saturday (March 2) against Western Colorado at Brownson Arena, the Mavericks will claim at least a share of the RMAC title.
Depending on how the chips around the conference fall this weekend, there's a chance they can stay home for the entire RMAC Tournament.
Four teams have four losses in the conference, another has five, and by the time they tip off Saturday, all teams in playoff contention will have played 21 of their 22 conference games and everyone will have a good idea of what a win or a loss Saturday means in terms of tournament seeding.
RMAC STANDINGS
The top four teams host quarterfinal games on Tuesday, March 5, with the highest remaining seed hosting the semifinals and championship games March 8-9, with an automatic berth in the NCAA Tournament awarded to the tournament champion.
With Colorado Mesa (23-5, 17-4 RMAC) entering Saturday's game a perfect 12-0 at Brownson Arena this season, the Mavericks would dearly love that No. 1 seed.
First things first, though — the Mavericks must beat Western Colorado to be assured of a top-four finish. Colorado School of Mines has five losses with two home games remaining and can still earn a first-round home game. The good news for CMU is that either the Orediggers or Adams State will have at least one more loss since they play one another Friday night in Golden.
The first RMAC tiebreaker is head-to-head competition, even if teams play only once during the conference season. However, if multiple teams are tied, there's a caveat — if one team has swept all the other teams that are tied, that team rises to the top. Conversely, if one team has been swept by all the other teams, that team falls to the bottom. Head-to-head results of the remaining tied teams are then looked at to determine seeds.
If ties cannot be broken head-to-head, the second step is the conference performance indicator, which assigns points for wins and losses, weighted by whether the game was home or away and the winning percentages of opponents.
That's the case with the four teams that are currently tied (no team has swept or been swept), but a lot can change between 5 p.m. Friday and about 7:30 p.m. Saturday when Colorado Mesa's game ends. The RMAC will announce seeds and pairings Saturday night once all games are final and all ties have been broken.
For their part, the Mavericks have tried to ignore all the what-ifs the past few weeks as they've steadily risen in the standings. All of their focus is on the Mountaineers, who will come in looking to win on the Mavs' home court for the second straight year, and to avenge a double-overtime loss to the Mavs in Gunnison.
Western Colorado (7-19, 5-16 RMAC) is out of the playoff picture, but beat Westminster by 12 points on Thursday and can finish its season with a signature win.
The Mavericks can keep building momentum into the playoffs by beating their longtime rivals and winning a conference title for the first time since the 2019-20 season. CMU has won 10 regular-season RMAC championships, the most of any school, and six conference tournament titles.
LAST TIME OUT
After a slow start Tuesday night, CMU ramped up the defensive intensity to pull away for a 77-55 victory at Westminster. The Mavericks led 43-37 at halftime, but outscored the Griffins 20-5 in the third quarter to move into sole possession of first place in the RMAC by one-half game.
Olivia Reed finished with 14 points and 13 rebounds, her 10th double-double of the season, and Laura Gutierrez had 11 points.
It was Josee Steadman's big night, however, with the sophomore forward hitting eight 3-pointers, only one off the single-game program record, and scoring a career-high 28 points.
RIVALRY REMATCH
The first meeting of the Western Slope rivals this season went to double overtime on Jan. 30, with 12 ties and 19 lead changes. The Mavericks shot only 32.5 percent from the field and made only three of 25 attempts from 3-point range, but Kylie Kravig's 3 at the horn sent the game to a second overtime, with CMU outscoring Western 12-6 for a 76-70 victory.
Olivia Reed tied her career high with 30 points and had a career-high 24 rebounds, which helped her earn national player of the week honors for the second time this season, and Kravig had 15 points in the victory.
Western's Ivey Schmidt had 18 points and Brooklyn Seymour added 17 — the two combined to make 15 of Western Colorado's 20 free throws.
SENIOR SENDOFF
Laura Gutierrez reached the career 1,000-point milestone when she hit the second of her three 3-pointers last Friday (Feb. 23) against New Mexico Highlands, and she did it in her home state.
Gutierrez, from Rio Rancho, N.M., is the only senior on this year's team and will be honored between games Saturday night along with six players from the men's team. She transferred to CMU last year after three years at Adams State and was the Mavericks' spark off the bench, averaging 8.2 points a game and making a team-high 40 shots from beyond the arc.
This season she moved into the starting lineup at shooting guard and has averaged 8 points, 3.8 rebounds and 1.8 assists per game. She scored a season-high 18 points in January against Highlands, and last season hit a career high of 27 points against Fort Lewis, including a career-high seven 3-pointers. She's second on the team in made 3-pointers with 42 this season.
IN THE REGION
The first ranked South Central Region poll was released Wednesday, and CMU is No. 2 behind Texas Woman's University, which on Thursday clinched the Lone Star Conference regular-season title. Mesa's win Tuesday against Westminster did not figure into this week's rankings.
Another set of rankings will be released March 6, but will not include results from the RMAC Tournament quarterfinal games the night before. Regional bids will be announced the evening of March 10 on ncaa.com.
The top eight teams after the final regional and national conference calls — the tournament champions from the RMAC and Lone Star and six at-large teams — qualify for the 64-team national tournament, which is split into eight regions. The No. 1 seed in each region will host their respective regional tournaments March 15-18.
NATIONAL RECOGNITION
The Mavericks are No. 19 in the D2CSC (Division II College Sports Communicators) national poll and are receiving votes in the Women's Basketball Coaches Association rankings this week.
SERIES HISTORY
CMU leads the long rivalry 57-14, including the double-OT win earlier this season. Western, however, stunned the Mavericks 61-60 at Brownson Arena last season when Brooklyn Seymour rebounded her own miss and put the ball back in with less than one second to play.
At Brownson, the Mavericks are 31-4 against Western Colorado, and until last season had not lost to the Mountaineers at home since January of 2010.
ABOUT THE MAVERICKS
Since the holiday break, the Mavericks' defense has taken hold, and when the energy and effort is up, opponents' scores and shooting percentages are down. CMU is 14-2 in 2024, with a signature 74-47 win against then-No. 20 Colorado School of Mines.
In those 16 games, CMU has given up an average of 51.4 points a game, below the season average of 55.8, and opponents have shot 33.2 percent from the field, also slightly below the season average of 35.2 percent.
Olivia Reed recorded her 10th double-double of the season Tuesday and is now averaging 16.8 points a game, fifth in the RMAC, and is second in the conference with 11.2 rebounds a game. She's shooting 57.9 percent from the field, which leads the conference, and although she doesn't take a lot of 3-pointers, she's shooting 30 percent from beyond the arc, 13 of 43.
Mason Rowland is averaging 14.7 points and 5.0 rebounds in her first collegiate season, with a team-high 35 steals in her sixth-man role. Laura Gutierrez scores 8 points a game, Josee Steadman adds 7.7 and Kylie Kravig 7.5. Kravig also leads the RMAC with 164 assists, which is third in a single season in program history, closing in on Mariah Martin's record of 176. Jill Teeters Derrieux is second with 171.
The Mavericks are riding a five-game winning streak and can wrap up an undefeated regular season at Brownson Arena.
ABOUT THE MOUNTAINEERS
Western Colorado opened the season against Texas Woman's University, which is the top team in the South Central Region rankings. The Mountaineers lost 12 of their first 14 games, and Thursday night's 72-60 victory at Westminster snapped a five-game skid. In that game, Western had one of its best-shooting nights of the season, 48.3 percent, and scored 70 or more points for the fifth time — their season high is 81 against Chadron State in early February.
Rachel Cockman, a 6-foot-2 junior forward, averages 15 points and 7.4 rebounds a game, with 5-9 freshman guard Jayda Maves an outside scoring threat with 63 made 3-pointers. She's scoring 12.1 points a game. Ivey Schmidt adds another 11.5 points a night and is coming off a career-high 28 points Thursday at Westminster.
Cockman missed all but the first minute of the previous game against CMU after an apparent ankle injury. She sat out the next five games, but has played in the Mountaineers' past three.
THE COACHES
Taylor Wagner is 267-82 as Colorado Mesa's head coach, with eight 20-win seasons, including 2023-24, and two with 30 wins. Wagner led the Mavericks to the Division II Elite Eight in 2013, has six NCAA Tournament appearances and nine total RMAC championships (five regular-season, four tournament).
Second-year Western Colorado coach Adam Jacobson is 13-40 in Gunnison. He had been the head coach at North Dakota State College of Science, an NJCAA team, won the Mon-Dak championship in 2021-22 and claimed the North Central District title to reach the NJCAA national tournament. Jacobson was the conference, region and district coach of the year that season.
DYK?
Colorado Mesa is one of three schools with both men's and women's teams in the South Central Region rankings. Colorado School of Mines and Lubbock Christian also have both teams in national tournament contention.
Nationally, only eight Division II schools can boast having both their men's and women's team win 20 or more games this season. Colorado Mesa is third among those programs with 47 combined wins. Gannon (Pa.) has 53 combined wins and Minnesota State has 49. In the RMAC, Colorado School of Mines has 41.
