DENVER – Careful now.
 
The Metropolitan State University of Denver men's basketball team posted its second straight big home victory Saturday night, rolling past South Dakota School of Mines & Technology 80-60 at the Auraria Event Center.
 
Three more wins in the final three regular season games and maybe, just maybe, the Roadrunners can sneak into the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference tournament.
 
And, then, with this talented team, who knows?
 
"The guys are still fighting, and that's really good to see," MSU Denver coach Michael Bahl said. "Especially after the two tough road trips we had, when we lost 3 of 4 at the buzzer, for us to bounce back and do what we did this weekend – that's a testament to the guys in the locker room."
 
Two of those buzzer-beater road losses came two weekends ago, when MSU Denver played at Black Hills State and South Dakota Mines. Those losses were by a total of five points. This time around, the Roadrunners won by 21 against Black Hills State on Friday night before the 20-point win over the Hardrockers that capped Homecoming Weekend.
 
"We're hungry," guard Druce Asah (Tracy, Calif./Tracy) said of the possibility of winning five straight to end the regular season. "We're ready to go. I know we can get it done."
 
Asah hit a 3-pointer to open the game and it was pretty much all downhill from there for MSU Denver (10-13 overall, 8-11 RMAC), which started the weekend in 12^th place but has moved up to a tie for 10^th – two games out of eighth. The top eight teams make the RMAC tournament.
 
MSU Denver jumped out to a 24-9 lead and led by at least 10 points – and by as many as 20 – for the final 32 ½ minutes.
 
Asah hit 4 of 8 from long range and finished with 20 points, running the junior's career total (which includes two seasons at Cal State East Bay) to 999 points.
 
But Asah wasn't alone.
 
The Roadrunners connected on 12 of 19 from beyond the arc, as all six players who attempted a shot from long distance made at least 50 percent of his tries. They shot season bests of 58.5 percent from the field (31 of 53) and 63.2 percent from 3.
 
It was the Roadrunners' best percentage from 3-point range since shooting 81.8 percent (9 of 11) at Fort Lewis on Jan. 18, 2014.
 
A big part of that was true freshman guard Demetrius Jackson (Lake Forest, Calif./El Toro), who made all four of his 3-point tries and is now shooting 54.8 percent (23 for 42) from deep for the season.
 
"My teammates and coaches have confidence in me, and without them I wouldn't be able to do it," Jackson said.
 
Jackson, who has started the last three games, scored a career-high 15 points Friday. And then he topped that with 16 points Saturday.
 
"He's a kid who just believes in himself," Bahl said. "He needed a little encouragement. He needed to figure out that this was his time and that even though he was a freshman, he didn't have to take a back seat to anyone.
 
"I love that he's continued to make those shots, but he's taking the right ones. And he's not hesitating. He's not second-guessing himself. He's playing with confidence. And some of those shots in the first half were contested 3s, and those were big-time plays by a big-time player."

Said Asah, the league's leading 3-point shooter: "He's big. He's so talented. It took him a while to know how talented he was. But it's starting to click for him, and he's not a freshman any more. He's stepping up big-time."
 
Redshirt freshman point guard Marcus Jefferson (Lewisville, Texas/Lewisville), also making his third straight start, turned in another terrific floor game with nine points, seven rebounds and six assists. All nine Roadrunners who played scored at least three points.
 
"It was a total team effort," Bahl said. "Druce got his points and Demetrius got his, but everyone scored, everyone contributed, everyone played at least 17 minutes. It was just a really solid game for us, and it was nice to see us continue to play our best basketball at the end of the season."