GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — March Madness, Division II style, has arrived.
As the No. 2 seed in the eight-team South Central Region women's basketball tournament, Colorado Mesa heads to the Lone Star State this weekend to try to reach the Elite Eight for the second time in program history.
The Mavericks, 24-6, face No. 7 Lubbock Christian, 21-9, at 1:30 p.m. (MDT) Friday in the regional quarterfinals at Kitty Magee Arena. Top-seeded Texas Woman's University, 29-4, is hosting the tournament in Denton, Texas, 40 miles northwest of Dallas.
Colorado Mesa was on the outside looking in on the regionals last season, but a year of experience had the young Mavericks prepared from the jump, winning their first five games and nine of their first 11. On their way to a share of the RMAC regular-season title, the Mavs had two six-game winning streaks and have not lost back-to-back games. They fashioned a 13-1 record at home, went 8-4 on the road and 3-1 at neutral sites. Their six losses were by an average of 5 points.
CMU coach Taylor Wagner doesn't shy away from talking about the importance of reaching the NCAA tournament with his team throughout the season.
"It's valuable time for a team to be able to play in the regional and to be in those playoff situations," Wagner said after the RMAC quarterfinals. "That's what this team needs. We're a young team, Laura (Gutierrez) is the only senior, and it's so important that these girls get that experience for future years."
Texas Woman's has been in the top 20 of the WBCA rankings all season, but in a one-out tournament, anything can happen. Wagner likes seeing how his teams stack up at the regional and national level, and despite having a young squad, he thinks the Mavericks have just as good of a chance to win three games in four days as any of the remaining eight. They're among the teams receiving votes in this week's WBCA coaches poll — Regis received 75 votes, CMU 17. No other team in the regional field is ranked or receiving votes.
"There's still another championship to win," Wagner said. "It's razor-thin, who can advance to the Elite Eight, and we're one of those teams that I think can do that."
THE SCHEDULE
Four teams from the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference and four from the Lone Star Conference made the regional field, and the way the seeds worked out, no team will face a conference foe in the quarterfinals.
Regis, seeded third, opens the tournament at 11 a.m. (MDT) Friday against No. 6 UT Tyler, followed by CMU and Lubbock Christian.
In the other half of the bracket, Texas Woman's plays No. 8 Colorado School of Mines at 4 p.m. and No. 5 Adams State faces No. 4 UT Permian Basin at 6:30 p.m.
Saturday's first semifinal is at 4 p.m. Saturday, which would include the Mavs if they win Friday, followed by the other semifinal at 6:30 p.m.
The regional championship tips off at 6 p.m. Monday night.
All games will be streamed live on a pay-per-view basis. Live stats are linked on the Mavs' team schedule page. Links to both, plus the tournament website, are included in the breakout to the right.
Fans attending games in person should note that TWU has a clear bag policy at Kitty Magee Arena, which seats 1,800, with the ability to increase seating to 2,700.
DON'T LOOK BACK
The Mavericks were stinging after their RMAC Tournament quarterfinal loss to CSU Pueblo last week, but they've put that in the past. They've adopted a coaching tip from the television series "Ted Lasso" this season, and it's helped them bounce back after a loss, or adjust after a bad quarter.
"I think you have to have the memory of a goldfish," freshman guard Mason Rowland said after the CSU Pueblo game. "You've gotta accept that it happened, but tomorrow we need to move on, come in and work hard and then hopefully the ball falls in our court the next game."
A goldfish, Lasso told one of his players, is the happiest animal on Earth because it has a 10-second memory. He then encouraged him to "be a goldfish."
CMU assistant coach Hannah Pollart has passed that along to the young Mavericks to help keep them from dwelling on mistakes.
THE GREAT UNKNOWN
Practicing all of last week without a game was a challenge, CMU coach Taylor Wagner said during his weekly appearance on the Jim Davis Show on KTMM Radio, especially when other teams were playing in the final four of the conference tournament. But, Wagner said, once the NCAA selection show announced they were the No. 2 seed and would be playing Lubbock Christian, the Mavs perked up and Monday had a "spirited" practice.
CROSSING OVER
Both teams fared well in their respective conference crossover events, with Lubbock Christian defeating Adams State, Colorado Christian and CSU Pueblo. Colorado Mesa downed West Texas A&M and Texas Permian Basin in their only games against the LSC.
MAVS VS. EVERYONE
The Mavericks went 4-2 against teams in the regional tournament this season, the three RMAC squads and Texas Permian Basin. CMU went 2-0 against Regis, 0-1 against Adams State and 1-1 against Colorado School of Mines during the RMAC season. In November, the Mavericks picked up a big regional victory against the Falcons, 70-54 in the D2 Conference Challenge at Brownson Arena.
RELATIVE NEWBIES
Players on Colorado Mesa's roster don't have much regional tournament experience — 46 total minutes of court time.
Junior forward Claire Heitschmidt has the most, appearing in three games the past two seasons for Central Washington, playing a total of 25 minutes in the West Regional. Kylie Kravig logged 19 minutes and Lauryn Deede and Tia Slade one minute each in the Mavs' loss to West Texas A&M in the 2021-22 South Central Regional. Guard Sophie Hadad was out with an injury.
Slade, who started all 29 games last season, is redshirting after an injury before this season began.
STUDENT-ATHLETES
Olivia Reed earned RMAC Player of the Year and Academic Player of the Year honors in successive weeks.
The sophomore forward from Windsor has a cumulative GPA of 3.92, including college courses taken when she was in high school. In her three semesters of classes on campus, the fitness and health promotion major has a 4.0 GPA.
On the court, Reed is first in the RMAC in field goal percentage (.573), second in rebounding (11.2) and fifth in scoring (16.9), leading the Mavericks to a share of the RMAC regular-season championship.
Kylie Kravig, majoring in exercise science, and Reed both made the All-Academic First Team. Kravig, a junior from Greeley, has a 4.0 GPA. The RMAC leader in assists (168) made the All-RMAC second team.
SERIES HISTORY
Lubbock Christian has won both meetings against CMU by a total of four points, a one-point win in 2003 in Gunnison and a 56-53 victory at Brownson Arena in the 2019 regionals. The Chaparrals went on to win the Division II national championship that season.
SCOUTING THE MAVERICKS
Wagner wants his team to go into the regional tournament with the same mindset that led CSU Pueblo to an upset of the Mavericks in the RMAC quarterfinals.
"Go in there and just play like it's the last game and give it their all," Wagner said after that game.
Olivia Reed is obviously at the top of any scouting report. Although she isn't the Mavs' only weapon, her ability to stay out of foul trouble is key on both ends of the floor.
She leads CMU in scoring and rebounding, but is also second in assists with 78, and third in steals with 31. She's also blocked a team-high 47 shots and has 205 defensive rebounds against the opponent's top post player.
In her first two seasons, Reed has scored 868 points, including 507 this season, which is 13th in a single season in program history. In 59 games, she's already 27th on CMU's career scoring chart.
When she got into foul trouble against the ThunderWolves, they immediately went inside to Alisha Little, who scored 10 points in a 20-6 run in the second quarter to turn a 14-11 CMU lead into a 31-20 halftime deficit.
The top two players off the bench, freshman guard Mason Rowland and redshirt sophomore forward Josee Steadman, combine for 21.9 points a game. Rowland, the RMAC Freshman of the Year and a second-team All-RMAC pick, is Mesa's second-leading scorer at 14.8 points and has provided the spark off the bench since the opening game. Rowland is a 38.7 percent shooter, 34.2 percent from the 3-point line, and with the ability to create her own shots, including weaving through traffic, scoring at the rim and drawing fouls. She leads CMU by shooting 86.8 percent from the free throw line.
Steadman is the Mavs' top 3-point shooter, making 37.5 percent of her attempts, including a career-high eight against Westminster, when she scored a career-high 28 points not long after being able to remove a protective face mask she wore for a couple of weeks. In the past two games, however, Steadman has been scoreless, taking only eight shots.
With dozens of half-court sets, the Mavericks can break down either a zone or man offense, but also like to run the floor and score in transition by controlling the boards — Mesa has a plus-7.7 rebound margin, pulling down 40.2 per game.
CMU isn't a team to throw a gimmick defense at a team, playing only man-to-man, and has held teams to 36 percent shooting, 29 percent from the 3-point line and 56.2 points a game, 12.8 fewer than the 69 points the Mavericks score a game.
When the Mavericks play with focus and energy on the defensive end of the floor, they get those run-outs and easy baskets. That also gets teams away from applying pressure, especially on the perimeter, which tends to bog down the offense and leads to rushed shots.
Laura Gutierrez, the only senior on the squad, is scoring 8.5 points a game and, after a slow start from the perimeter, has shot better as the season has progressed, with a season-high five 3-pointers against Fort Lewis in January. Gutierrez eclipsed the 1,000-point mark for her career earlier this season and has 1,053 entering the regional tournament.
Junior point guard Kylie Kravig is climbing the single-season and career charts in assists. Her 351 assists are third for a career, four away from tying for second, and her 168 this season are third, three from tying for second. Kravig averages 7.5 points a game, able to attack off the dribble or score from the perimeter.
SCOUTING THE CHAPARRALS
With three Division II national titles since 2016, Lubbock Christian knows what it takes to win in March.
The Chaparrals' most recent title came in 2021, one of their two undefeated runs to the top. This year's rendition returned five starters from 2022-23, three of whom received all-conference honors.
Forward Grace Foster was the preseason co-Player of the Year and leads the Chaps in scoring at 16.2 points and 6.6 rebounds a game. Foster, a 6-1 junior, earned first-team all-conference honors after the season and was the Lone Star's Academic Player of the Year.
She's shooting 47.6 percent from the field and can step out and hit the 3, making 40.4 percent of her attempts. In fact, she's made more 3s, 46, than anyone else on the team, including guard Audrey Robertson, who has made 43 and is shooting 42.6 percent from beyond the arc. Robertson, who will also attack off the dribble and doesn't shy away from contact, averages 13.9 points a game. Maci Maddox chips in another 11.3 points and has 128 assists on the season. One of those with starting experience, 5-11 guard/forward Martie McCoy, has been out since early January after starting the first 13 games.
As a team, the Chaps shoot 42.4 percent from the field, 36.4 percent from the 3-point range and 78 percent from the free-throw line.
They outscore their opponents by 6.3 points a game despite being out-rebounded by 2.3 per game.
Lubbock Christian's defense has made the difference, holding teams to fewer than 58 points a game and 39.6 percent shooting and only 28.3 percent from long range. The Chaps force 16 turnovers a game and average 7.6 steals per game.
A 5-2 start to the season was followed by a 2-1 start to conference play, but Lubbock Christian then rattled off seven straight wins before back-to-back losses to UT Tyler and Texas Woman's. The Chaps lost to Texas A&M International 90-80 in triple overtime in the quarterfinals of the Lone Star playoffs. It was the longest game in the history of the women's LSC tournament.
THE COACHES
Taylor Wagner is 268-83 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 and the Mavericks have reached seven NCAA Tournaments in his tenure. The Mavs have won six regular-season conference titles since Wagner took over in the 2012-13 season, and four tournament championships. In all, CMU has an RMAC-leading 11 regular-season titles and five tournament championships.
Steve Gomez is in his 21st year at Lubbock Christian and is 505-138 with a pair of Division II national titles. He took the Chaparrals to 10 straight NAIA national tournaments before Lubbock Christian moved to the NCAA Division II level. In their first full year of membership, the Chaps went 35-0 and won the 2015-16 national title.
DYK?
Texas Woman's Athletic Director Sandee Mott has multiple ties to the RMAC. She was the women's basketball coach, assistant athletic director and senior woman administrator at Western Colorado from 2001-05, and was the associate commissioner at the RMAC for four years after leaving Gunnison. She's been an administrator at MSU Denver and CU-Colorado Springs as well as Johnson & Wales in Denver, and took over at Texas Woman's in January, 2020.
