GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. – A regional championship is on the line Tuesday night in the First United Bank Center as the third-seeded Colorado Mesa Mavericks take on top-seeded West Texas A&M in the Sweet 16 of the Division II NCAA men's basketball tournament.
Tuesday will mark just the second Sweet 16 appearance in program history for the CMU men's program, as the Mavericks will be seeking their first-ever South Central regional championship and the Elite Eight berth that comes with it.
The Mavericks and Buffs are scheduled to tip off at 6 p.m. MT/7 p.m. Central time from Canyon, Texas. The game can be purchased via pay-per-view on NCAA.com. Fans can also listen to a Mavericks radio feed on KNZZ 1100 AM radio and follow the game via live stats.
How To Watch
The 2024 DII men's and women's basketball tournaments will be available to watch on a pay-per-view basis on the NCAA Championship Pass from the first round to the quarterfinals. The NCAA Championship Pass can be streamed on NCAA.com, participating school sites, Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, and Google TV.
Fans will have three viewing options: $9.95 per contest, $29.95 for all Division II Men's Basketball Championship games excluding the semifinals and championship game, and $49.95 for all Division II Women's and Men's Basketball Championship games, excluding the semifinals and championship games.
CMU/WTA&M Stream Link |
NCAA Championship Pass Link
The semifinals of the Division II Men's Basketball Championship will be carried on CBS Sports Network while the final will be carried on CBS.
Looking Back
Colorado Mesa tallied back-to-back NCAA Tournament wins on Saturday and Sunday, defeating Lone Star Conference tournament champions Eastern New Mexico in the first round and RMAC Tournament champions Fort Lewis in the second round.
RECAPS:
Eastern New Mexico |
Fort Lewis
Trevor Baskin went off for 31 points and 13 rebounds against Eastern New Mexico as the Mavericks went on a 13-0 run late to turn a three-point lead into a 16-point lead against the Greyhounds, eventually winning by a 95-77 score.
Five players scored in double figures on Sunday as Colorado Mesa defeated Fort Lewis 85-80, avenging two prior losses to the Skyhawks this season.
Owen Koonce scored a game-high 20 points while
Isaac Jessup scored 17 points for the second straight night. Jessup shot 5 of 15 from three-point range, including a go-ahead three with 35 seconds left as CMU scored the final seven points of the game in the five-point win.
So Sweet
Colorado Mesa will be making just the second Sweet 16 appearance in program history Tuesday night. The Mavs' previous Sweet 16 game came just two years ago in 2021-22, when the Mavs lost 72-62 to Black Hills State.
Five players on this year's roster –
Trevor Baskin,
Reece Johnson,
Michael McCurry,
Mac Riniker and
Christopher Speller – logged minutes in that 2022 Sweet 16 matchup, with Baskin and Riniker in the starting lineup. Baskin finished with 12 points and five rebounds while Johnson scored 10 points off the bench.
Including the two victories in this year's big dance, Colorado Mesa has an all-time record of 5-10 in the NCAA Tournament. The bulk of CMU's NCAA success has come under current head coach
Mike DeGeorge.
In DeGeorge's six-year tenure, Colorado Mesa has qualified for the last five NCAA tournaments, playing in four (with one cancelled due to COVID-19). The Mavs are 4-3 in the NCAA Tournament under DeGeorge entering Tuesday's matchup. Prior to DeGeorge's arrival, Colorado Mesa only had one Division II NCAA Tournament win in six appearances.
New Level
Redshirt junior forward
Trevor Baskin has been a dominant player throughout the 2024 season, but he has taken his game to another level in the games that fellow All-Region player
Mac Riniker has missed due to injury.
In 11 games this season without Riniker, Baskin is averaging 23.3 points, 9.3 rebounds and 4.3 assists per contest. That includes a 25-point, 12-rebound game against eventual NCAA Tournament team MSU Denver on February 17, a career-high 43 point game against New Mexico Highlands on February 23 and a 31-point, 13-rebound double-double in the first round of the NCAA tournament against Eastern New Mexico last Saturday.
Baskin has recorded four double-doubles in CMU's five postseason games. In the RMAC Tournament, Baskin went for 22 points and 10 rebounds in the quarterfinals against Chadron State and 13 points and 12 rebounds (in just 20 minutes played) in the semis against Black Hills State. In the RMAC Tournament finals against Fort Lewis (CMU's only loss in its last 15 games), Baskin fell one rebound shy of a double-double, accumulating 23 points and nine rebounds.
Baskin's long list of honors this season includes being named the 2024 RMAC Player of the Year, First Team All-RMAC, RMAC All-Academic First Team, RMAC All-Tournament Team and D2CCA First Team All-Region. Additionally, Baskin remains under consideration for the Bevo Francis Award, making Small College Basketball's Top 25 Watchlist that was released last Friday. Baskin and West Texas A&M's Larry Wise are the only South Central region players in the top 25.
Series History
West Texas A&M is 3-0 all-time against the Mavericks, but this is the first-ever postseason matchup between the two schools. The Buffs defeated CMU by two points back in 2003 and beat the Mavs 72-63 in 2021 when both schools were ranked inside the nation's top four.
Colorado Mesa and West Texas A&M also played earlier this season, back on December 18, 2023 in a neutral-site game in Las Vegas, Nevada. Then-No. 5 West Texas A&M beat then-No. 8 Colorado Mesa 81-66 despite a 29-point, 10-rebound game from
Trevor Baskin.
The 66 points remains the lowest offensive total in any game for the Mavericks this season. Colorado Mesa also had season-lows in field goal percentage (.338) and three-point percentage (.114). The 33.8 percent shooting night (22-65) is the lowest by nearly 100 percentage points for the Mavericks, who haven't shot worse than .426 from the field in any of their other 32 contests thus far in 2023-24.
The Mavericks made just 4 of 35 attempts from three-point range against the Buffaloes, a significant off night for a CMU team that ranks third in Division II with 11.6 made three-pointers per game. Colorado Mesa had only two games this season where they shot under 30 percent from three-point range.
On Tuesday night, however, the Mavericks will have the services of
Christopher Speller (8.7 points, 3.2 assists per game, .593/.409/.714 shooting line),
Michael McCurry (6.0 points per game, .492/.354/.737 shooting line) and
Ethan Menzies (2.8 points, 1.9 rebounds per game, team-high .700 field-goal percentage), none of whom played in the season's first matchup between the schools.
Tale Of The Tape
Here is how CMU and West Texas A&M stack up in major statistical categories:
| NCAA Rank |
Colorado
Mesa |
Category |
West Texas A&M |
NCAA Rank |
| 14th |
86.8 |
Scoring Offense |
84.7 |
31st |
| 122nd |
73.7 |
Scoring Defense |
72.6 |
101st |
| 8th |
+13.1 |
Scoring Margin |
+12.1 |
13th |
| 9th |
50.3 |
Field Goal % |
47.4 |
52nd |
| 55th |
42.4 |
Opposing Field Goal % |
43.7 |
100th |
| 88th |
35.9 |
3-Point % |
38.4 |
20th |
| 3rd |
11.5 |
3-Pointers Per Game |
8.9 |
52nd |
| 105th |
33.4 |
Opposing 3-Point % |
34.5 |
156th |
| 95th |
73.8 |
Free Throw % |
77.7 |
14th |
| 39th |
38.9 |
Rebounds Per Game |
36.6 |
106th |
| 5th |
19.3 |
Assists Per Game |
12.0 |
210th |
| 42nd |
4.0 |
Blocks Per Game |
2.7 |
176th |
| 89th |
7.3 |
Steals Per Game |
5.5 |
240th |
| 74th |
14.0 |
TOs Forced Per Game |
12.6 |
138th |
| 267th |
15.6 |
TOs Committed Per Game |
10.3 |
28th |
About West Texas A&M
Unlike Colorado Mesa, West Texas A&M is no stranger to this stage of the NCAA Tournament. The Buffs will be seeking their fifth overall trip to the Elite Eight and fourth trip since 2018 with a win over CMU.
This also marks the second straight season that West Texas A&M has served as the South Central regional host and garnered the region's top seed. WTA&M lost in the Sweet 16 of last year's tournament to Black Hills State during the Yellow Jackets' run to their second consecutive Final Four in 2023.
The Buffs are 28-4 and went 20-2 in Lone Star Conference play. West Texas started the season 25-1 with a 22-game win streak from November 25-February 22 of this season that saw them rise to a national No. 1 ranking. The Buffs lost three out of four games entering the NCAA tournament but rebounded to defeat No. 8 seed Angelo State and No. 4 DBU in the first two rounds of the tournament. West Texas has had a practically unchanged starting lineup throughout the season, with four players starting all 32 games and a fifth player starting 31 games. All five Buffs starters average 9.8 points per game or more.
The Buffs are led by D2CCA South Central Region Player of the Year Larry Wise. The senior from Texas averages 19.7 points, 5.5 rebounds and 3.3 assists per game. Freshman Kieran Elliott averages 12.8 points and 6.8 rebounds per game while senior Zach Toussaint averages 12.5 points per game while hitting 76 three-pointers at a 41 percent clip.
West Texas A&M head coach Tom Brown is in his 10
th season at WT. Brown has accumulated a record of 264-61 while sending the Buffs to seven straight NCAA Tournaments, including a run to the national championship game in 2021. Brown was recently named the D2CCA Regional Coach of the Year.
