The Mesa State men’s basketball season begins this month. The team is coming off its most successful year in history. A 23-6 overall record and 16-3 in the RMAC, highlighted an RMAC season championship and its first ever win in the Divison II national tournament history. That, however, was last year and this year’s coaches and  players know that expectations will remain high for this upcoming year.
“I really like this team, I love the character of this group and they’re all extremely coachable,” coach Jim Heaps said. “They practice hard, they’re eager to learn. We’ve got solid leadership and our incoming players along with the kids we have coming back have high basketball IQ’s.”
Heaps is entering his 15th season as the coach of the men’s basketball program. The Mavs may look young on paper, but according to coach Heaps, that doesn’t mean anything.
“We’ll make no excuses, we’re young but we’ve got experience on this team,” Heaps said. “We have a couple kids coming off red shirts and we return a lot of guys that know our system. When you lose as many kids as we did, you can’t change your mindset. We have to know how to win the close games and play towards making it back to the tournament. I’m excited because we’ve got a great group of guys.”
One difference between this year and last year is immediately apparent the moment you step onto the floor with them. It’s size.
“We’re big. This is probably the tallest team I’ve had,” Heaps said.
Mesa State has 11 players on the roster that are 6’5” or taller, which they will need in a conference where everyone is gunning to take down the reigning champs.
“Everyone on the team knows that we have a target on our back after our success last year, which is fine by us. We’ve rallied around that and we’re staying up beat by keeping any negative energy away,” senior and captain Lance Fite said.
Fite is the only returning starter from last year’s team. Russell Gregory, Michael Bear and Jeff Hart are also returning this year. Mesa, which was picked to finish fourth in the RMAC preseason polls, is set to defend its title.
“Our goals are the same, everyone wants to win conference. Were willing to do whatever the coaches need us to do. The seniors want to leave a winning tradition at Mesa,” Fite said.
Mesa State tips off the season officially at the Al Kaly classic Nov. 19 in Pueblo. Their first home game is the following week, where they take on the University of Texas of the Permian Basin Nov 26th.
u
chughes@mesastate.edu