GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. – Top-seeded Colorado Mesa men's basketball took care of business in the RMAC Tournament quarterfinals, earning the right to host the semifinals and finals of the conference tournament in Brownson Arena for the second consecutive year.
The Mavericks will be hoping that the similarities to last year end there, as CMU will be looking to end a streak of two consecutive losses in the semifinal round of the tournament. The Mavericks will be searching for the third RMAC Tournament title of head coach
Mike DeGeorge's tenure, winning previously in 2020 and 2021.
Colorado Mesa, ranked No. 5 in the latest NABC Coaches Poll, has a tough opponent on deck in the semifinals in tournament No. 4 seed Black Hills State. The Yellow Jackets are not accustomed to losing in March, having advanced to the past two NCAA Tournament Final Fours.
The Mavericks will play in the first game of Friday night's doubleheader, with CMU and Black Hills tipping off at 5 p.m. The other semifinal, between Fort Lewis and Colorado School of Mines, will be at 7:30 p.m. in Brownson Arena. The winners of those two games will compete in the RMAC Tournament championship game on Saturday at 6 p.m.
The games will be available on a pay-per-view live stream on the RMAC Network, with Ethan Jordan on the call. Fans can also listen to CMU games on The Team 1340 AM radio, as well as follow along via live stats or purchase tickets from the RMAC.
A Note From the RMAC
The Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference has announced the addition of a subscription model to all 2023-24 RMAC championship broadcasts on the RMAC Network, the league announced Wednesday. The announcement comes after support from league leadership in the summer to implement the pay-per-view concept as a manner to offset the league's broadcasting initiatives and operations associated with championship events.
Fans will be able to purchase day passes for each day of tournament play, priced at $9.95 per day. To purchase the day pass, fans will navigate to
www.rmacnetwork.com and will be directed to select the institution that they are supporting through their viewership. Once the payment submission is complete, fans will have access to any RMAC championship contest available for that specific sport. Day passes will expire within 24 hours of the purchase.
For technical support questions, fans may submit a support ticket with
Hudl Support or email the RMAC directly (
help@rmacsports.org).
For further support, fans can visit the RMAC Network Help page.
Looking Back
Colorado Mesa advanced out of the quarterfinals of the RMAC Tournament for the fifth consecutive season, defeating No. 8 seed Chadron State 84-74.
RECAP:
Chadron State
Trevor Baskin and
Owen Koonce scored 22 points apiece in the victory, with Baskin also grabbing 10 rebounds for a double-double. The Mavericks rallied from early deficits of 9-2 and 19-9 to take control of the game in the second half, with a first-half 12-0 scoring run and a second-half 10-0 scoring run.
Quarterfinal Recap
All four higher seeds were able to win their respective RMAC quarterfinals at home on Tuesday night.
No. 2 tournament seed Fort Lewis survived a scare, trailing by as many as 19 points in the first half before closing out seventh-seeded CSU Pueblo 102-96 behind 29 points from Obi Agbim and 19 points from Junior Garbrah.
No. 3 seed Colorado School of Mines cruised, winning 90-71 over sixth-seeded Regis. Newly crowned RMAC Freshman of the Year Alex Romack posted his sixth double-double of the season with 17 points and 11 rebounds while Majok Deng also had 17 points.
No. 4 seed Black Hills State, which overtook MSU Denver for the right to host this game in the final weekend of the regular season, ousted the fifth-seeded Roadrunners 75-72. Matthew Ragsdale and Caelin Hearne each scored 18 to lead the Yellowjackets, who led by 8-10 points for much of the contest before a late MSU Denver push.
Awards Season
Colorado Mesa was well represented when the RMAC announced its men's basketball awards on Wednesday, as the Mavericks received three out of four major awards and had five players earn some degree of all-conference recognition.
CMU All-Conference Release |
RMAC All-Conference Release
Trevor Baskin was named the RMAC Player of the Year, becoming the fourth player in Colorado Mesa history to win that award.
Mac Riniker repeated as the conference's Defensive Player of the Year, and both Baskin and Riniker earned spots on the RMAC All-Conference First Team.
Guards
Isaac Jessup and
Owen Koonce were each named to the Second Team while
Christopher Speller earned an honorable mention. Colorado Mesa had five total All-Conference honorees, the most of any school in the RMAC, and the Mavs' four players on the conference's first and second teams were tied with Fort Lewis for the conference high.
Head coach
Mike DeGeorge won his second consecutive RMAC Coach of the Year award and third in the last four seasons. During DeGeorge's tenure, the Mavericks have now won 20 or more games in five consecutive seasons and are all but certain to qualify for their fifth consecutive NCAA tournament later this month. DeGeorge has also managed to win with local talent, as all five RMAC All-Conference players on CMU's roster this season went to high school in the state of Colorado.
Additionally, guard
Levi Dombro won his third straight RMAC Summit Award, given to the student-athlete with the highest GPA competing at each RMAC sport's championship site. Dombro has a perfect 4.0 GPA through 120 academic credits as an environmental science major.
Polls and Rankings
The second seeded edition of the NCAA's regional rankings also came out on Wednesday, and there were no significant changes to the South Central section of the poll.
Colorado Mesa continued to rank No. 4 in the region, trailing West Texas A&M, Fort Lewis and DBU. Crucially, all three of those schools currently have a 1-0 head-to-head record against Colorado Mesa, making it more difficult for the Mavs to pass them up.
Shockingly, West Texas A&M and DBU both got upset in the Lone Star Conference Tournament quarterfinals on Thursday, but those results do not factor into Wednesday's rankings release. Provided both schools can get there, a potential CMU rematch with Fort Lewis in the RMAC Tournament championship game looms large with not only RMAC implications, but significant NCAA seeding implications as well.
The NABC Coaches Poll does not factor into the NCAA's rankings, but the coaches are high on the Mavericks. Colorado Mesa is No. 5 overall in the latest NABC poll, and for the first time this season, the Mavs are the top-ranked team in the South Central region, narrowly leading No. 6 Fort Lewis, No. 7 West Texas A&M and No. 10 DBU.
RMAC Tournament History
Colorado Mesa has been one of the most consistently excellent regular season programs of the last half-decade in NCAA Division II, but the Mavericks' postseason record hasn't matched its regular season prowess throughout the entire history of the program.
As Mesa State College, the Mavericks won the inaugural RMAC Men's Basketball tournament in the 1984-85 season, the first year that the RMAC jumped from the NAIA ranks to NCAA Division II as a conference. After that first win, however, it would be a whole 35 years until the Mavericks lifted another RMAC Tournament trophy in 2020.
In that 35-year span between RMAC Tournament victories, the Mavericks won at least a share of the RMAC regular season title six times and reached the RMAC Tournament final an astonishing eight times without winning it. Although CMU got the monkey off its back by winning back-to-back RMAC Tournament titles in 2020 and 2021 under
Mike DeGeorge, Colorado Mesa still has an all-time record of 3-8 in the RMAC Tournament final.
The Mavericks haven't reached the final in the last two seasons, suffering upset losses to sixth-seeded Regis as a No. 2 seed in 2022 and fourth-seeded Colorado School of Mines as the No. 1 seed last year, both in the semifinal round.
This will be the third RMAC championship game held in Brownson Arena, with the first two coming in 2021 and 2023. Mavericks forward
Ethan Menzies will be the only former RMAC Tournament MVP in the field after taking home the honors during CMU's home floor tournament win in 2020-21. Menzies is one of three RMAC Tournament MVPs in program history, with Tommy Nuno winning the honor in 2020 and Chad Baar taking home MVP in 1995 despite the Mavericks losing in the final that year. Baar is the only tournament MVP from a non-winning team in RMAC history.
About Black Hills State
Black Hills State (17-12, 14-8 RMAC) has seemingly perfected peaking at the right time. The Yellowjackets know what it takes to win in March, having advanced to the NCAA Tournament Final Four in each of the last two seasons.
In 2022, Black Hills State won the RMAC regular season and tournament double and rolled through the NCAA tournament with double-digit wins over No. 2 regional seed West Texas A&M, No. 4 regional seed Colorado Mesa in the Sweet 16 and national No. 1 seed Nova Southeastern in the Elite Eight.
In 2023, Black Hills finished third in the RMAC and was seeded sixth in the regional entering the NCAA tournament but were unfazed, rolling through third-seeded Mines, second-seed and RMAC champs Fort Lewis and regional hosts West Texas A&M plus Minnesota-Duluth before falling in the Final Four once again.
This year, BHSU has had to deal with the formidable loss of Joel Scott, the two-time defending RMAC Player of the Year and reigning D2CCA National Player of the Year who is now at Colorado State. The Yellow Jackets got out to a 2-5 start but have been getting better throughout the year, beating Colorado School of Mines and winning six of its last seven contests entering the showdown with CMU.
The Yellow Jackets still have a star on the roster with the conference's leading scorer, Matthew Ragsdale, who averages 22.5 points per game. A fifth-year guard who played with Scott at Lewis-Palmer High School, Ragsdale has double figures in 22 straight games and all but two of BHSU's contests overall.
Ragsdale has five 30-point games this season, and three of them came in the Yellow Jackets' last three regular season games to help Black Hills secure the tournament four seed. Ragsdale scored 37 against Adams State, 30 against Colorado Christian and 36 against Chadron State, winning the final RMAC Offensive Player of the Week award of the season.
Behind Ragsdale, Caelin Hearne averages 13.3 points per game while Hoku Fisher averages 10.2 points and 4.9 rebounds per contest. Post presence John Shanklin is tied for fourth in the conference with 31 blocks.
Head Coach Ryan Thompson is in his sixth season at Black Hills State. In his previous five seasons, Thompson has compiled a 104-41 record with two RMAC Coach of the Year honors, two regular-season RMAC championships, one RMAC tournament championship and the two Final Four postseason runs. Under Thompson's leadership, BHSU is the only RMAC basketball program to finish in the top four of the RMAC in each of the last five seasons.
Colorado Mesa holds a narrow 12-9 edge in the all-time series with Black Hills State. The teams are no stranger to meeting in the postseason – during their first of two Final Four runs, Black Hills beat CMU in the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16, 72-62, in March 2022, ending the longest postseason run in Maverick program history.
The Mavericks are 6-3 at home against Black Hills State, including an 80-57 win over the Yellow Jackets earlier this season.
The Nightcap
Colorado Mesa and Black Hills State will be the first of two matches contested at Brownson Arena on Friday night. At 7:30 p.m., the second semifinal will tip off between Fort Lewis (tournament No. 2 seed, national No. 6) and Colorado School of Mines (tournament No. 3 seed, national No. 21).
There are plenty of intriguing subplots to this matchup. The two teams will be playing for the second time in seven days. Last Saturday, Colorado School of Mines defeated Fort Lewis to deny the Skyhawks a split RMAC regular season title with Colorado Mesa.
This matchup is also a rematch of last year's RMAC Tournament title, after Mines and Fort Lewis defeated CMU and Black Hills, respectively, to get there in 2023. Fort Lewis won that game by an 82-76 score inside Brownson Arena.
