DENVER – So much for easing back into things after the break.
 
The Metropolitan State University of Denver men's basketball team, which hasn't played a game in more than two weeks after an important non-conference win against Northwest Nazarene (Idaho), dives right back into Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference play this weekend with home games Friday and Saturday against Fort Lewis and Adams State, respectively.
 
Fort Lewis (6-5) is only 1-4 thus far in league play, but the Skyhawks were picked to finish third in the conference and had merely gone 78-18 overall and 55-11 in RMAC play over the previous three seasons while winning two league titles, a conference tournament championship and making three national tournament appearances.
 
Meanwhile Adams State is only 3-7 overall and was picked 11^th in the league, but the Grizzlies have been among the league's surprise teams with a 3-2 record that is good for a fourth-place tie.
 
Friday's game with Fort Lewis at the Auraria Event Center tips off at 7:30 p.m., while Saturday's matchup with Adams State is scheduled to start at 7 p.m.
 
Along with Adams State, MSU Denver is among the teams in that six-way logjam for fourth. The Roadrunners have won four straight games to improve to 5-4 overall. This weekend could cement MSU Denver's status as one of the league's top-tier contenders, or it could send them back into scramble mode.
 
"Any time you've got home games, especially against teams like Fort Lewis and Adams State … I mean Adams State ended our season last year (in the RMAC tournament), and Fort Lewis obviously beat us at their place … it's a big weekend for us," MSU Denver coach Michael Bahl said. "You want to take care of business at home, and we had a good stretch before the break, but now we've had two weeks off. So it'll be a good test, and hopefully we're ready to go."
 
Fort Lewis has struggled to shoot well, ranking last in the RMAC in field goal percentage (41.9) and next-to-last in both 3-point percentage (32.7) and free-throw percentage (66.4). But the Skyhawks rank in the top third of the league in many other key categories.
 
Marquel Beasley, a 6-foot-5 senior who causes problems with his athleticism, averages 17.5 points per game, and 6-8 senior Otas Iyekekpolor, who started his career at Division I Central Arkansas, leads the league with 1.8 blocked shots per game while averaging 8.5 points and 6.3 rebounds.
 
The Skyhawks, who have four new starters, have lost three RMAC games in overtime.
 
"They've got some new pieces, and they're going to be a different team from what we saw before break," Bahl said. "We're expecting another battle with them.
 
"They're playing really hard defensively, and they've had three overtime games that just didn't go their way. They could easily be 4-1 in conference. They're still a really good team coming in here."
 
Adams State, which was 17-13 last year and finished in a fifth-place tie with MSU Denver in the RMAC at 14-8, is third in the league in scoring (83.1 points per game).
 
The Grizzlies have five new starters but suffer from no shortage of talent thanks to transfers such as John Dewey (Division I Sam Houston State), Davere Creighton (Division I Mississippi Valley State) and Rickey Norris (New Mexico Highlands). Dewey (The Bronx) and Creighton (Brooklyn) are New York City products, while Norris is from Chicago's legendary Simeon High School.
 
Dewey, a 6-1 senior, is fourth in the RMAC in scoring (18.0 points per game) and second in assists (4.9 per game). Last year he started and averaged 10.1 points per game for a 21-15 Sam Houston State team that reached the semifinals of the postseason CollegeInsider.com tournament.
 
Creighton, a 6-5 senior, averages 15.6 points and is sixth in the RMAC with 7.0 rebounds per game. Norris, a 6-4 junior, averages 12.5 points, 6.4 rebounds and 1.5 steals.
 
"They're athletic," Bahl said. "They want to get up and down and play a little bit faster. And they're definitely playing much better. It's a brand-new team, so their losses early – it's similar to us in that if they played those same teams again, it might be a different story. They're starting to find their groove. They have a lot of firepower, and our defense is going to be tested."
 
MSU Denver is eighth in the league in field-goal percentage defense (45.3) and 13^th in 3-point defense (39.3). But the Roadrunners' win streak included back-to-back RMAC home wins in which opponents shot a combined 43.5 percent from the field and 37.5 percent from 3.
 
One of those wins was against a Colorado Mesa. With the win over Mesa and Nov. 24 over Texas A&M-Commerce, MSU Denver is 2-0 against teams in the most recent D2SIDA regional rankings.
 
Roadrunners guard Druce Asah (Tracy, Calif./Tracy) is ninth in the RMAC in scoring (16.5 per game) while making a league-best 3.4 3s per game. Garrett Carter (Rialto, Calif./Etiwanda) is fourth in the league in assists (4.2 per game), Kendall McIntosh (Oakley, Calif./Freedom) is fourth in blocked shots (1.3) and Elijah Straughter (Fresno, Calif./Clovis North) is 10^th in rebounds (6.7).
 
MSU Denver players resumed practice Dec. 27 and are hoping to pick up where they left off.
 
"The first couple of days you're just trying to get back into a routine as much as possible," Bahl said. "Without school going on, we can really spend a lot of time concentrating on basketball, but we also don't want to overload them. This is a good time of year for them to get off their feet, recover, relax and really focus on one thing. That's what we've been talking about the last six or seven days. We're not going to change a whole lot – no team really does, you sort of are who you are at this point. We're just trying to get better at some of the little things and this is the time of year where you actually have time to concentrate on those little things."