The basketball teams will be debuting their new 2013 rosters in a round-robin style tournament in Brownson Arena next weekend.

After losing an exhibition match in which the women’s team had basketball powerhouse BYU on the ropes until the final minutes, coach Wagner and his No. 8 nationally ranked team are 2-0 after two very convincing victories over Northwestern Oklahoma State, 69-42, and Southwestern Oklahoma state, 82-68. Dixie State, Western State and the University of Montana Western will all be on the slate for the women’s teams.

The men have a few more questions early on in the season after an 0-2 start for first year head coach Andy Shantz. The Mavericks are hoping that playing on their home court will get them on the right track.

“We always have said that we have the best fans in the conference,” redshirt Junior point guard Dan Estes said. “We know that it is during Thanksgiving break so we won’t have as many fans and students as we would when classes start back up, but overall we are just excited to have fans cheering for us.”

Coach Shantz made a point to test this unit, scheduling tough teams already, especially with his team featuring a lot of new faces.

“Right now we will have two kids who will be starting who are new to this program in John Orr and Joe Kiely,” Shantz said. “Both are really talented kids, and that’s the key to having so many new kids is just trying to find continuity. We are still trying to figure that out, but the learning curve has been pretty quick.”

John Orr, from Eastern Arizona, and Joe Kiely, from Sheridan College, are both transfers this year and Estes and Mike Melillo are the two most notable returners from last year’s team, which finished 18-10.

The Mavericks will play Friday and Sunday and face a top-10 ranked NAIA school, Western Montana, and CSU-Pueblo, who the Mavs tied with in conference standings last season.

The men have already faced many quality opponents, falling to Dixie State in a close match 85-81, and then taking on BYU in an exhibition match and losing 60-84. Although the Mavs have yet to notch their first win under Coach Shantz, the coaches and players believe that playing the tough opponents will prepare them for the grueling RMAC schedule, which features last year’s Division II runner-up Metro State, and the No. 20 ranked Fort Lewis.

Estes said that playing tough teams, especially a team like BYU, was a good way to measure where this years team is at, and said that the overall experience of playing at a big time school with crazy fans was a great way to prepare the team for the upcoming road games it will face.

The tough preseason schedule was “by design”, said Shantz. “Even though it doesn’t look to good to look at the standings and see 0-2, we know that if we played easy teams to start, it would hurt us down the road when we play the tough RMAC teams. I think the rough start will eventually pay off.”

ksparkhu@mavs.coloradomesa.edu