Leadership and toughness.

Those are the traits that describe redshirt senior guard Jared Small. He transferred to three different schools: Metro State University-Denver and Fresno Community College (FCC) before finding a home at Colorado Mesa University (CMU).

Redshirt senior guard Georgie Dancer and Small met at FCC, and a friendship quickly blossomed between the two.

“The way that we both treat each other off the court, we are blood brothers. Blood couldn’t make us any closer and that is just the biggest thing that I can take away from us meeting each other is the amount of respect we have towards one another,” Dancer said.

The pair have played all five years together between FCC and Colorado Mesa University (CMU) and have grown together. One of the biggest aspects of Small’s game that Dancer helped with was the mental side of basketball.

Dancer helped Small to learn to control his emotions and understand the mental aspects of the game.

“Coming from where I came from, it’s just hard nose, physical basketball and you can’t get mad like everything is always in the game and you can’t really put your emotions into the game. You just have to let the game go however it’s going to go. Sometimes he would let his emotions dictate how he’s going to play that day and he doesn’t do that anymore. He has matured so much because of that and is always levelheaded now. Anytime he’s not, he catches himself and gets on himself before anyone can tell him anything,” Dancer said.

Since transferring to CMU, Small has proved crucial in back-to-back Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference (RMAC) Tournament Championships. He scored 22 points in the RMAC Tournament Semifinal in the 2019-20 season against Dixie State University in their final season in the RMAC.

He sustained a shoulder injury in the semifinal game but played through the pain to help win CMU’s first RMAC Championship victory since the 1984-85 season. The Mavericks pulled out a 69-61 win over the Colorado School of Mines.

He then battled through a knee injury during the 2020-21 COVID condensed year where CMU went 21-2 and met CSM in the RMAC Championship again. The Mavericks picked up the 75-74 win in overtime to win their second consecutive conference tournament championship.

Small came up clutch for CMU in both regulation and overtime as he hit a three-pointer to tie the game up at 69 to send the game into overtime. He buried the game-winner from beyond the three-point arc 1:20 left in the overtime to seal the game.

“If it had to a single play, it would definitely to be the shot against Mines. I can’t forget that one, especially because that year, I was hurt the whole first half of the season and was battling just to come back. Not touching a basketball for seven months, and then hopping right into the middle of the season was so tough. Not being able to play the way I wanted to and feeling down, feeling like I wasn’t the player that I used to be. That game, being able to put up a good number of numbers, a good number of rebounds and then hitting that shot, was like finally. That was a really relieving moment,” Small said.

Small has played healthily this season, but the Mavericks have had a couple of season-ending injuries to key guys which have forced Small into a different role.

Small said that his role has varied from game to game and is dependent on redshirt freshmen Mac Riniker and Trevor Baskin are in foul trouble or not. If they are in foul trouble, Small will have to cover a big man from the opposing team

“My role always is to just be a leader, but basketball-wise, it depends on foul trouble. If Mac [Riniker] or Trevor [Baskin] is in foul trouble, I’m going to have to guard more forwards and play more of the forward spot, but if they aren’t in foul trouble, I can stay in my own position which is the guard spot. That is the main indicator, and coach DeGeorge likes putting me on someone who is good at getting off mid-range shots or getting off a lot of threes, he likes putting me on them because of my length on them and making it hard for them,” Small said.

He has done whatever CMU needs of him this year. He averages the fourth-most points on the team this year with 10.5 points per game and has compiled the third-most blocks on the team with 27.

With only two seniors on the team this season, Small has had to be more of a vocal leader this year.

“You have to decide how you’re going to approach it. Sometimes you kind of must be like hard on them and be say, ‘Hey, come on, come on. Like we got to do this, we got to do that.’ Then, there are other times where it’s like, ‘Hey, guys, like we’re good, all we got to do is keep playing our game, just stay the course,” Small said.

So, it’s been a learning process still, just because especially these guys got so used to winning last year. And then now with all the injuries and stuff, it’s a lot harder to win. So, it has been a process of getting to that point where we can just say whatever we need to say, and people aren’t going to take it a certain way or feel bad about it or feel like we’re getting on them and stuff like that. I feel like we’re hitting our stride right at the perfect time.”

The Maverick’s next game is Thursday, Feb. 24 at 7:30 p.m. against Western Colorado University to begin the final road trip of the regular season.