DENVER – So far, so good for the second half of the MSU Denver men's basketball season.
 
Even though the New Year's Eve game at Chadron State, a 67-64 loss decided in the closing seconds, didn't turn out the way the Roadrunners hoped, there's plenty of positives to draw from heading into the final 16 regular-season games.
 
"We've looked at this as a whole new season," MSU Denver coach Dan Ficke said. "With the Division II break, you have a chance to start fresh after getting a week off, and now it's a matter of who can get back in the flow quickly. I liked a lot of what we saw at Chadron. We just didn't finish like you would want."
 
MSU Denver is 4-8 overall and 1-5 in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference heading into home games Friday at 7 p.m. against New Mexico Highlands (6-8, 4-4) and Saturday at 6 p.m. against CSU Pueblo (7-6, 3-4).
 
"We're working to re-establish that if teams are going to beat us at home, we are going to make them work to do that," Ficke said. "We've got to be tougher and more resilient. At this point, every game is a big game for us and so we're focused on New Mexico Highlands and will try to play our best game of the year Friday – and then we'll recover and go try to do it again Saturday."
 
The Roadrunners' 1-5 start in league play all happened in the final month of 2022.
 
"With (six) of our next (eight) games in Denver, we have a chance to get our legs back under us and get back to the trajectory we were on going into December. December was not our month."
 
New Mexico Highlands comes to the Auraria Event Center with one of the top players in Division II.
 
Dante Moses, a 6-foot-5 senior guard who averaged 12.6 points per game last year at Angelo State (Texas) after transferring from Division I Radford, ranks fifth in Division II with an average of 22.2 points per game while shooting 59.6 percent from the field. Moses, who is second nationally with 118 made field goals, also averages a team-best 6.7 rebounds.
 
"He's a tremendous scorer who has had some unbelievable games and is playing really well for them," Ficke said. "He's a tough matchup for every team they face. We have to make it as difficult as possible for him, make him work as hard as possible, and we can't give him layups.
 
"As a team they do a good job of playing through him, and he's unselfish enough and they have enough shooting around him that they can be deadly. We have to make his night tough and not let their other players have big nights."
 
MSU Denver continues to develop a diversified offensive attack led by Tyrei Randall (15.2 points per game), Caleb McGill (14.5) and Jaden Kennis (10.1).
 
"Highlands is pretty impressive defensively in the halfcourt and they'll give you token pressure full-court," Ficke said. "But once it's in the half-court, they're aggressive in the passing lanes trying to fuel their transition game. If we can handle their pressure and execute our offense, we should be able to score. And then we've got to keep getting better on the defensive end."