COLORADO SPRINGS — She ran it back.
Colorado Mesa's Olivia Reed Thyne was selected the women's basketball Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Player of the Year for the second straight season, the conference announced Thursday. The 15 conference coaches vote for the all-conference teams and major awards and cannot vote for their own players.
Reed Thyne, a 6-foot junior forward from Windsor, was the Player of the Year as a sophomore, and is the first back-to-back winner of the award since Molly Rohrer of CSU Pueblo (2016-17, 2017-18). She was the RMAC Freshman of the Year after the 2022-23 season.
CMU's Taylor Wagner was voted the Coach of the Year by his peers, his seventh such honor in 13 seasons at CMU and the second in a row, after leading the Mavs to the conference title.
The Mavericks' leading scorer is one of three CMU players to earn all-conference accolades. She and senior point guard Kylie Kravig made the first team, with senior shooting guard Riley Hayes on the second team.
Alisha Little of CSU Pueblo repeated as the conference defensive player of the year, with Anitielu Kapiolani of New Mexico Highlands the freshman of the year. Kapiolani was injured late in the season and did not play in Tuesday's RMAC quarterfinal game against the Mavericks.
Reed Thyne is averaging a double-double, with 22.3 points and 11.3 rebounds a game, both second in the conference. She led the RMAC in field goal percentage (58.2) for the second year in a row.
She scored 30 or more points seven times this season, including breaking the program record with a 45-point performance against nationally ranked Pittsburg State just before the holiday break.
With 625 points this season, she's the fourth CMU player and only the 11th RMAC player ever to reach that milestone, and has moved into third place all-time in scoring at CMU with 1,536 career points. She's also closing in on 1,000 career rebounds, with 952.
Now a three-time All-RMAC First Team selection, Reed Thyne is No. 4 in the RMAC in free throw percentage, shooting 82.1 percent, a marked improvement from a year ago, when she shot 72.9 percent from the line.
The primary player getting Reed Thyne the ball has been Kravig, who leads the RMAC in assists (172), assists per game (6.1) and assist-to-turnover ratio (2.0). The Mavs' point guard has had a memorable senior season, earning first-team accolades after being a second-team pick last season. She's sixth in Division II in assists and assists per game.
Kravig has had five games in which she recorded 10 or more assists and has three double-doubles (points and assists) this season.
The 5-8 senior from Greeley is CMU's career assists leader with 535 entering Friday's RMAC Tournament semifinal game, and can break her own single-season RMAC and program record of 180 assists, set last season. Kravig has started every game the past three seasons and had one start as a freshman, giving her 90 in 118 games, and is averaging 36.6 minutes per game this season.
She also increased her scoring this season and is averaging 10.9 points per game and has made a career-high 32 3-pointers, shooting 40 percent from behind the arc.
Hayes transferred to CMU from Arkansas-Fort Smith and has had the best season of her career, averaging 12.7 points a game. She moved into the starting lineup after Mason Rowland was injured in the third game of the season, and has been CMU's top outside threat.
The 5-8 senior from Cave Springs, Ark., is shooting 33.8 percent from the 3-point line, second in the conference, and averages 2.8 treys per game, also second among RMAC players and tied for 15th in the nation. Her 77 made 3-pointers are second-most in the conference and tied for 12th in the nation.
Hayes scored a career-high 33 points earlier this season, and along with Reed Thyne's 31 points, achieved a program first, with two players scoring 30+ points in a game. Her career-high nine 3-pointers in that game tied Jaylyn Duran's 2019 program record, and she broke Duran's record when she attempted 19 treys in a single game.
Wagner's Mavs were picked to win the conference this season, but to do so, they had to overcome losing Rowland, last season's Freshman of the Year, to injury, as well as Tia Slade, a former starter who had a recurrence of the injury that sidelined her last season. Tamryn Blom, a junior college transfer who was expected to play a big role, was injured in the preseason and forced to redshirt.
Wagner shuffled his rotation to find the right combinations, inserting 6-foot-2 senior transfer Brooklyn Palmer into the starting lineup to alleviate some pressure on Reed Thyne inside and also keep defenses honest with her ability to shoot from beyond the arc.
Entering the RMAC Tournament semifinals, the Mavericks have won 17 straight games — they have not lost in 2025 — and won the conference title by three games after finishing in a four-way tie for the title a year ago. Wagner, who has a 293-88 record at CMU, has nine seasons with 20 or more wins. Colorado Mesa has either won or shared the RMAC Championship seven times in his tenure, won four RMAC Tournament championships, reached the NCAA Tournament seven times and the Elite Eight once.
