DENVER – It's a long, long, long season.
 
Especially the 22-game Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference portion of the schedule.
 
So, while surrendering an 11-point lead in a home loss last Saturday to Adams State was disappointing, there's no sense in the Metropolitan State University of Denver men's basketball team letting that slow them down too much.
 
They've got plenty more chances, starting with this weekend's road trip to Utah, where they'll play Friday night at Dixie State and Saturday night at Westminster. Both games are scheduled to tip off at 7:30 p.m.
 
"It was disappointing, but if you play the game long enough you're going to have moments where you don't play as well as you want to," MSU Denver coach Michael Bahl said of the Adams State loss. "But you look internally, as players and coaches, and realize we have to get better. We have to improve. That's our mentality."
 
The Roadrunners are 6-5 overall and are tied for seventh in the league at 4-3. But they had won five straight games before losing to Adams State, and they are only two games out of second place.
 
"We've won five of our last six games, so it's not like we're down," senior guard Enrique Cortes Zotes said. "We dropped the ball last game, but we're going to bounce back."
 
The Roadunners have shown what they are capable of in tantalizing doses this season. They've beaten nationally-ranked Texas A&M-Commerce, the third-ranked team in the South Central Region, according to D2SIDA. They've beaten Colorado Mesa, ranked eighth in the region. They've beaten Northwest Nazarene (Idaho), which is ranked fourth in the West Region.
 
Win the first two games of the season, which they lost by four points each – once in overtime – and they would be 8-3. Hold on to win against Adams State and they'd be 9-2 overall and 5-2 in the conference.
 
Still, they are close enough, with enough season left, to reach their team goals.
 
"We've positioned ourselves where we're sort of in the middle of the pack of the conference," Bahl said. "And there are 15 conference games left, so the story isn't written yet for anybody. We've positioned ourselves to make a run at this thing, and now it's one game at a time and doing what we have to do to make sure we don't slip up."
 
Both Dixie State and Westminster are 4-7 overall and among the teams tied for 11^th in the RMAC at 2-5.
 
Dixie State and MSU Denver are squaring off for the first time as conference opponents.
 
"It's actually exciting," Bahl said. "I've never been to Dixie. It's supposed to be a really nice atmosphere. They have a really nice arena. It's going to be exciting for our guys."
 
Westminster, meanwhile, is known for drawing smaller, quieter crowds.
 
"That makes it a tough place to play," Cortes Zotes said. "We have to bring our own energy. They've been good the last couple of years. They lost a couple of guys, but they're much better than their record."
 
The old adage is to take care of business at home and then split on the road. The Roadrunners would take it if they could get it.
 
"Any time you go on the road, you always want to win both, but right now we're concentrating on Friday night against Dixie," Bahl said. "Then Saturday we focus on Westminster. Hopefully we can have a good showing on Friday night so that we can set ourselves up to win both."