Let’s do it all over again.
The 2018-19 Colorado Mesa University (CMU) women’s basketball season was a special one. A Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference regular-season and tournament championship, home games in the NCAA Tournament and an All-American name on the roster.
2019 will continue to see the Mavericks attempt to climb the mountain yet again as CMU is picked to finish first in the RMAC for another consecutive season. Opposing RMAC coaches collectively voted the defending conference champs would finish ahead of teams like Westminster and Colorado Mines. CMU received nine votes while Westminster tallied up five and Mines got two.
“I think we are going to be more balanced offensively than we have been in the last couple of years,” Head Coach Taylor Wagner said. “So I’m kinda excited to see that but there is a question mark of ‘will they do it?’ But I think we have four or five girls that can really get out there and have a good night.”
Story of the year? Rinse and repeat the same defensive framework and form a consistent offense.
Last year the Mavericks were struggling to find their identity at the beginning of the season. A loss to a Western Oregon team who ended the year going 8-18 was the first loss on the Mavericks’ record. It was the reset the team needed only within the second week of the season but the hard look in the mirror helped propel the team to win 17 games in a row before finally losing to Westminster in February.
“I know at the beginning I was like “what team are we?” Are we gonna be really good or are we gonna play to our competition? Actually, I think that loss woke our team up and we were a little bit more focused and didn’t take teams for granted and it made us better in the long run,” Wagner said.
Taylor Wagner is in his eighth season at the helm of the program that has seen four RMAC titles, four NCAA tournament appearances with one of them seeing the Elite Eight.
For the diverse squad rocking the maroon and white this season, it’s all about pushing the limits even further than before and taking residency out of that comfort zone…because that’s what championship teams do.
“With every little drill that we do that’s kinda what we wanna set,” Wagner said. “There’s a right way and a wrong way so we wanna do it right every single time. I think that is kinda building. Even though we have a lot of returners, we still have a lot of players who are trying to fill roles and play bigger roles that they maybe are not accustomed to yet.”
With the absence of players like Jaylyn Duran and Karina Brandon, the gaps are there, but so are the plugs. Sydni Brandon is returning to the lineup for her senior season and the reigning RMAC Tournament MVP is shooting for that RMAC Defensive Player of the Year after supposedly getting snubbed of the award last year. The Grand Junction Native lead the entire nation in assist-to-turnover ratio and was named to All-RMAC First Team. She led the conference in total assists (137) as well as steals (75).
Brandon will continue to be the fire for the team while other players will have to fill the scoring role. Kelsey Siemons and Kylyn Rigbsy will both return to the starting lineup as the pair were both in the top four for scoring in 2018. Rigsby was the second-best shooter on the team last year with 275 points while Siemons contributed 206.
Other players like Daniella Turner and Sophie Anderson will be rotating in with the guards as the two juniors played prominent bench roles last year but will be forced to step up the minutes this season. Elly Waters is another name to mention because the Rifle native is a sophomore but did transfer from Regis University where she averaged 24.6 minutes per game and averaged 7.5 points.
“I think our pace is going to be quicker and we still have holes that are the offensive and defensive side of the ball we are trying to plug right now….we really try and get everyone well rounded.”
This year, the exhibition game against the University of Denver allowed Wagner’s squad to point out their flaws before going on the road for the majority of November for four consecutive games. The first regular-season game is on Nov. 8 against Cameron University in Stephensville, TX.
