After a successful start to 2020, the Colorado Mesa University women’s basketball team is on the up-and-up’s. After starting the season 2-2, the Mavericks have won 11-straight games, are undefeated (9-0) in Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference matchups and have the best scoring defense in the entire nation.
Two home wins against New Mexico Highlands (78-33) and CSU-Pueblo (59-41) from this last weekend, showed us some things that we can continue to expect moving into the latter half of the season and towards the eventual postseason.
That defense though
CMU has one of the best defenses in the country, there is no question about it. Taylor Wagner’s squad allows only 47.5 points per game and their opponents shoot only 31.1 percent from the field. Both of those stats are number one among all NCAA Division II teams.
The Mavericks held the Cowgirls of New Mexico Highlands to two points in the first half of that contest and then held the Thunderwolves to only four points in the second quarter of Saturday’s matchup. CMU held both teams to a combined 30.95 shooting percentage over the weekend.
“I think that is one thing we’ve come back and gotten better at, before it was dead,” junior guard Sophie Anderson responded when asked about defensive communication. “But we’ve really harped on communication and I think we were ready for that this week.”
Sydni Brandon is making her case for RMAC Defensive Player of the Year as the senior leads the conference in total steals (46) and steals per game (3.1). Brandon had five steals against the Thunderwolves on Saturday which is the fourth time this season the Grand Junction native has had five or more steals in a game.
Forward Kelsey Siemons leads the entire RMAC in blocks with 27 on the year. Siemons was forced to be more of a board player these last two games because she was missing from beyond the arc going 0-10. Normally she is the Mavericks’ best three-point shooter with a three-point field goal percentage of 44.9, the second best in the RMAC.
Moving forward, CMU needs to continue to be dominant on defense while the rest of their games becomes more complete, especially with games like two consecutive matchups against Fort Lewis and Dixie State coming up on the schedule. Both the Skyhawks and Trailblazers have the two best scoring offenses in the conference.
“We’ve talked with the guards like, ‘we got to do something, we haven’t shot it well, but you could be a good rebounder while you’re not shooting it well,” Wagner said. “My philosophy, you go get rebounds and everything then your shots probably gonna start falling.”
We like three’s…when they fall
The zone defense of New Mexico Highlands on Friday night forced the Mavericks to shoot the majority of their shots from the arc…34 attempts to be exact. CMU did made 14 of those shots against the Cowgirls and then followed it up with only four made attempts out of 20 total against CSU-P.
When it works it’s great to see. However, as mentioned earlier, CMU’s best long range shooter in Siemons did not make a single three-pointer all weekend. Because of that, the team’s three-point succession dropped below 30 percent for the first time all season.
The bench is really really good
That statement holds enough leverage with just Dani Turner’s name alone. The team’s leading scorer hasn’t started a game all season but still manages to average 16.5 ppg off her 22.9 minutes played per game.
Turner has taken over the role of the primary scorer since the departure of Jaylyn Duran, and the rest of the bench has filled in the necessary holes elsewhere. Sariah Wi Neera has been a pleasant surprise on the defensive side of the ball working alongside Sydni Brandon. Wi Neera is second on the team in steals with 16.
Sophie Anderson was a bench player to start the year but has started in every single game since Nov. 22. She has proved to be a valuable defensive asset in the paint and knows the importance of having a strong bench.
“We’ve been together since freshman year, we’ve kinda got that chemistry going so it’s kind of meshed better,” Anderson said. “We have one person go off one night and another person go off another so.”
One name to pay attention to for the rest of the year is Morgan Myers. The Dixie State transfer is finally getting back to full health after dealing with injury near the end of 2019. The game against New Mexico Highlands was the first game where she accumulated more than 15 minutes on the floor since Nov. 29. In that game, Myers racked up five points, two assists and three rebounds.
“She’s going to be an important part to our team,” Wagner said. “She got hurt before the break, couldn’t do anything over break and coming back she wasn’t really one hundred percent. So I think as she gets back into practice we can get a little bit more and she can get a little more comfortable out there because she’s such a dynamic player.”
She did not play against the Thunderwolves the following night, but moving forward, the St.George native could be a valuable asset that Wagner could utilize more often.
