DENVER – What's happening this weekend for the MSU Denver women's basketball team?
Not much, except, well, a return to the Auraria Event Center after a long, successful and perhaps unprecedented road trip. A chance to recognize a spectacular individual achievement. An opportunity to recognize and reflect upon the 10-year anniversary of the most successful team in program history. The chance to participate in a charitable cause inspired by the legendary coach whom MSU Denver's coach played for and learned from. And then, back on the court, a potentially key Saturday game – provided the Roadrunners' success continues Friday.
Not much right?
So let's run through it again.
MSU Denver returns to the Auraria Event Center for a 5 p.m. game Friday against Chadron State after winning five games in eight days, all away from home, to surge to 12-4 overall and 8-3 in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference, tied for fourth place with Black Hills State, but only a half-game behind second-place Westminster.
"We still have to keep that sense of urgency," MSU Denver coach
Tanya Haave said. "It's literally one game at a time.
"Chadron is much, much improved. We still have to stick with that theme of, OK, this is the most important game right now. We have to maintain our focus."
Prior to the game, senior forward
Allie Navarette will be recognized for an incredible career achievement – the 2020-21 RMAC Player of the Year reached 2,000 career points (she has 2,008) in Saturday's win at New Mexico Highlands. Navarette, who scored 1,398 points in three seasons at Hawaii-Hilo, has 610 in 1 ½ seasons with the Roadrunners. She's fourth among active Division II players and 12
th among all NCAA players regardless of Division, in career points.
"Just getting through school is huge, and then the success speaks to consistency and embracing the grind, working through adversity," Haave said. "To get to 2,000 points – and she's probably going to get 1,000 rebounds, too – is so impressive. Her resiliency and consistency is the most impressive … day after day and night after night."
Meanwhile, for Saturday's 6 p.m. game against Black Hills State, the 2010-11 team's 10-year anniversary (delayed a year due to COVID-19) will take place. That team, Haave's first at MSU Denver, went 30-3 overall, including 21-1 to win the RMAC, and reached the national quarterfinals.
"I think it's good for the current team to see alums who have gone through the program," Haave said. "It was a special team that just always found a way to win. It wasn't always pretty, but we found a way. You see some of that with this group now. I'm anxious for the current team to meet our the former team."
Memories from that season will come rushing back.
"It was surreal," Haave said. "We didn't really know what we had in the pre-season. So it was let's take this practice and be the best we can be at this practice, and then we accumulated practice after practice. And the same thing happened with the games, and those kept accumulating and we just kept winning.
"I think they had an expectation – not a cockiness – that we were going to be blue-collar, we're going to work, defend and rebound, and do enough to win."
On Friday, MSU Denver will recognize and take part in a We Back Pat night for Alzheimer's awareness. Pat Summitt, the legendary Tennessee coach who was Haave's college coach, passed away in 2016 after having Alzheimer's disease. The MSU Denver men's team will also recognize We Back Pat.
"What she's done, not only for women's basketball but for women's sports in general," Haave said. "She's one of those pioneers who worked for $10,000 a year, washed uniforms and swept floors to the point where she was making $2 million a year and providing all these opportunities to help grow women's sports."
Meanwhile, Black Hills State stamped itself as an RMAC contender with an impressive win over Colorado Mesa on Monday to improve to 10-7 overall and 8-3 in the league, tied for fourth with MSU Denver.
"Black Hills is playing well," Haave said. "They're physical. They defend well. They have a lot of kids who are scoring, a lot of kids who are stepping up. They're on a roll, too. They have the same record we do in conference and they're coming off a big home win against Mesa."
While Black Hills State has won three straight, MSU Denver is on a seven-game roll that is the program's best since a nine-game winning streak during the 2017-18 season. The five straight road wins is the program's best since the 2011-12 campaign.
"It was the culmination of settling into roles and, by being together, coming to an understanding that we're all in this together, that different people are going to contribute, and that it's not all up to one or two people," Haave said. "All contributions are valued an important. It's one thing to just say it. I think there's an understanding for the players. Everyone is excited about winning."
