GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — No more mulligans.
That's one of the messages Colorado Mesa women's basketball coach Taylor Wagner delivered to the Mavericks this week as they prepared for the quarterfinals of the South Central Region tournament.
"You've got to go out and play and make plays and I think that's the big thing we want to do. … You want to have fun, you want to have a great attitude, but you also have to have the confidence and have a chip on your shoulder like, hey, we've got to be the toughest team. And we always say that the tougher team is always going to advance in a tournament like this."
The No. 22 Mavericks (25-5) play Eastern New Mexico (20-9) at 6:30 p.m. (MDT) on Friday at Kitty Magee Arena in Denton, Texas. Texas Woman's University, seeded No. 1 in the region and ranked No. 1 in the nation, is the tournament host and faces Adams State at 4 p.m. CMU would face the winner of that game in the semifinals of the single-elimination tournament.
On the other side of the bracket, No. 2 UT-Tyler opens the day against No. 6 West Texas A&M at 11 a.m., with No. 2 Lubbock Christian playing No. 7 CU-Colorado Springs at 1:30 p.m.
The semifinals are Saturday at 4 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. (CMU would play the late game), with Monday's championship at 6 p.m.
Colorado Mesa, seeded fourth in the eight-team regional, have shown toughness, rattling off 18 consecutive wins since returning from the Christmas break, adjusting to how teams defend All-America forward Olivia Reed Thyne and the Mavs' perimeter game.
The Mavericks' half-court offensive sets have several options, allowing them to break down man-to-man or zone defenses, and finding open shooters if teams opt to collapse around Reed Thyne in the post. Reed Thyne averages 21.9 points and 10;9 rebounds a game, and is also second on the team with 86 assists, behind point guard Kylie Kravig's program-record 182.
BACK FOR MORE
After bowing out in the regional semifinals last season with an inexperienced team at the national tournament level, the Mavericks return to Denton with a more veteran squad. Only two starters on that team are back in their same roles and their second-leading scorer has missed all but the first three games of the season with injury, but a pair of transfers know all about the Lone Star Conference, having played in that league last season.
Guard Riley Hayes was a three-year starter at the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith and center Brooklyn Palmer was a starter at the University of Texas-Tyler after two years of junior college basketball at Utah State University-Eastern.
Palmer, in fact, started against the Mavericks in the regional semifinals last season. Tyler is on the other side of the bracket, so the only way Palmer would face her former teammates would be in the regional finals.
"I mean, it is kind of strange, but I wouldn't change it," Palmer said. "I think definitely being here ... I'd rather be on this end. It is interesting. We're going to see people we played with and played against, and I'm just ready for whatever teams we play, but I'm just grateful to be in a Mesa jersey this year."
Hayes will be playing in her first regional tournament, but is no stranger to Kitty Magee Arena and Lone Star competition.
"I think it helps because, I mean, teams are new every year, but being familiar with some of the players, and then having played at Texas Woman's a couple years, I think it will bring a level of comfort knowing that I've been here, I know what I've done on this court against these teams," she said.
Hayes and UAFS faced Eastern New Mexico once each of her three seasons there, going 1-2. She started all three games, and had a 20-point game her sophomore year in a win, hitting six 3-pointers.
Palmer started against the Greyhounds in a win last season, finishing with two points and two rebounds.
Returning from last year's regional lineup are point guard Kylie Kravig, the RMAC leader in assists, assists per game and assist-to-turnover ratio, and Olivia Reed Thyne, the two-time RMAC Player of the Year.
Claire Heitschmidt started last season but is now coming off the bench, starting wing Mykaela Moore saw limited playing time as a sophomore, and Lauryn Deede also came off the bench in the regional. Mason Rowland, last season's RMAC Freshman of the Year who was sensational off the bench, missed all but three games this season with an injury.
CMU's first guard off the bench is redshirt sophomore Macy Larsen, who played only two games last season before missing the rest of the season with injury.
Wagner has used a short bench much of the season, with his starting five all averaging more than 30 minutes a game, and that's unlikely to change in the NCAA Tournament.
"Hopefully there's not as many nerves going into it, and they know what it takes," Wagner said. "They saw the teams last year, we know the teams going down there, and like Brooklyn said, it's the best of both conferences, and you've got to play at a high level. There's small margins. You can't have a lot of mistakes, and you've got to be really focused, and execution's got to be great. Energy's got to be great. Coaching has got to be great. We're going in there and doing our best."
ABOUT LAST WEEK
The Mavericks aren't dwelling on the 63-61 loss to CU-Colorado Springs in the RMAC tournament title game that ended their 18-game winning streak.
"I think we all got over it pretty fast. I know it's tough, but like we talked about, it's a learning experience," Hayes said. "There's things we we took from it that we're gonna put toward this week. And I mean, we're lucky we get another shot at it. We knew the season wasn't over. We were just like, we've worked for this all year, it didn't end last week, we get a new start this week."
The team got together Sunday night to watch the selection show, practiced Monday and Tuesday, including film review of the UCCS game, before flying to Dallas on Wednesday.
"We just watched the last seven minutes of the game, we're up for 54-46 and and there were a couple good plays, but there were five or six plays where if we do this, we do that, maybe we extend that lead, and it doesn't get as tight," Wagner said. "Those are certain areas and things that we could control as well. It wasn't someone else making a decision or a call or anything like that, it's what we can control, and things we've talked about all year long, things that we knew about in the scout that we needed to do. Hopefully we can learn from that and be better this next time out."
SCOUTING THE GREYHOUNDS
Eastern New Mexico has turned things around from an 11-17 season in 2023-24 to win 20 games for only the fifth time in program history. Picked 10th in the preseason poll, the Greyhounds opened the season 10-1 and finished in second place in the West Division of the Lone Star Conference and fourth overall.
Second-year coach Blake Huber brought in 10 new players, a mix of junior college and four-year transfers and freshmen. The teams have played only once in the Division II era, a CMU win in 2001.
Ishuana Hunter, a 6-foot senior forward, averages 11 points and nearly five rebounds a game, shooting 45 percent from the field. Nataya Lockett, a 5-8 junior guard, chips in 10.6 points and 3.3 rebounds and Jayla Smith, 5-11 senior guard, adds nine points and leads the Greyhounds with 6.0 rebounds a game.
"A good team, really athletic, great rebounding team," Wagner said. "They're going to get up and pressure, they're really long and lanky and they play hard, so we're going to have to be able to handle the basketball, block out and play our game.
"Execution's got to be good, and we just can't get rattled by them. They like to make teams play ugly, and if you allow that, then you can get down quick."
A dozen players have appeared in more than 20 of the Greyhounds' 29 games, and the majority like to shoot the 3, with the team making nearly 6½ per game.
Eastern New Mexico averages just under 70 points a game and gives up just more than 60, forcing teams into nearly 20 turnovers a game. The Greyhounds out-rebound their opponents by seven per game.
The Mavericks turn the ball over only 11 times a game. CMU scores 71 points a game, gives up 56.5, makes nearly seven 3-pointers per game and has a 6.3 rebound margin over its opponents.
FOLLOW THE MAVS
Fans unable to make the trip to Texas can keep up with the Mavericks online.
The Team 1340 (KTMM, 1340-AM/101.1-FM) will broadcast the Mavs' games on the radio and online (theteam1340.com).
Games will also be live-streamed by the host school, Texas Woman's University, through the Lone Star Conference's partnership with FloCollege. FloCollege is a monthly subscription service ($19.99), so fans wanting to watch games will need to pay to view, but will have access to all games. A link to Friday's game is included above and is also on the Mavs' schedule page at cmumavericks.com.
Live statistics will also be online, with links above and on the schedule page.
Texas Woman's has set up a Tournament Central site here with links to every game, plus information on all eight teams.
DYK?
Before adopting the school's primary mascot of Greyhounds, women's athletic teams at Eastern New Mexico were known as the Zias, with the logo a modified Zia sun with a running Greyhound placed in front of the sun. The Zia sun symbol is used throughout New Mexico and is a sacred religious symbol of the Zia Pueblo, a Native American community near Santa Fe.
In 2015, the ENMU alumni board and students recommended dropping Zias in favor of Greyhounds, matching the mascot of the men's teams, and the ENMU Board of Regents approved the change in May, 2015.
