DENVER – Typically, there's no tougher weekend on the MSU Denver men's basketball schedule than going on the road to play Colorado Mesa and Westminster, on back-to-back nights, with a four-hour bus ride in between.
 
Well now there's this.
 
The Roadrunners are set to play exhibition games Friday at Wyoming and Saturday at Colorado.
 
After that, they should be as ready as they can be.
 
"This is a chance for us to play teams that will be better than any team we could possibly face all year long at our level," MSU Denver coach Dan Ficke said. "It's a test for ourselves to see what we're made of, and it's a chance to go on the road before we go on the road during the season – to get away from our comfort zone and learn how to play after traveling, playing on back-to-back nights.
 
"This is a fundraising opportunity for us as well, but we talked last year about what we could have done to better prepare our guys with our exhibitions and scrimmages, and one thing was to play on back-to-back nights."
 
No matter the results this weekend, it's full speed ahead for the Roadrunners as they enter year two under Ficke.
 
With little time to recruit after being hired last year, Ficke still found some gems as a young team went 12-17 overall and 9-13 in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference, which turned out to be one of the better leagues in NCAA Division II – four different teams spent time ranked in the national top 10.
 
The Roadrunners return four of their top five scorers from last season, led by 6-foot-8 forward Caleb McGill (13.8 points per game) and 6-0 guard Brayden Maldonado (8.5), the RMAC's Co-Freshman of the Year.
 
"To me, Caleb has player-of-the-year-type talent for our league, an all-region talent," Ficke said of a player he picked up as a transfer from Division I California-Davis. "It's a matter of him doing it all the time. When he came in last year, it was almost like he was a freshman in some regards because he had barely played for two years. Now that he has a season of experience under his belt, he's used to being counted on again like he was in high school.
 
"Brayden is continuing to build his confidence off last year, and he's as good as anyone in our conference at the guard spot. He has such tenacity, and he has a chip on his shoulder wanting to prove that he was under-recruited."
 
Guard Jaden Kennis was the team's third-leading scorer last year at 10.0 points per game as a redshirt freshman, and guard Quave Propst-Allison came on strong last year as a true freshman, working his way into the starting lineup and averaging 6.4 points. AJ Kula, a big wing at 6-7 who averaged 4.0 points in nine games before taking a medical redshirt, is in the mix for an expanded role, guards Luke Jones and Quinten Rock showed flashes, and veteran forward Jake Chrisman is a capable backup and team leader.
 
To that group, Ficke went into the transfer portal and found players he had successfully recruited previously when he was the head coach at Belmont Abbey (N.C.), landing forward Mario Lacy, Jr., guard KJ Garrett and wing Ryan Maslow.
 
"It gives you some new guys who aren't coming in at square one," Ficke said. "They at least have a base knowledge of what we want to do defensively, and how we're trying to play offensively. They've seen it come to fruition. They've seen it work. They've won conference tournament championship games and played in the NCAA Tournament, so they'll be preaching the gospel to our guys. They've been where we want to get back to as a program."
 
The 6-8 Lacy, who may remind MSU Denver fans of former RMAC Defensive Player of the Year Laolu Oke, led Division II in field goal percentage at 78.0 (163 of 209) while playing for Ficke in 2021-22, and has career totals of 1,118 points and 795 rebounds. After playing his freshman season at Urbana (Ill.), Lacy averaged 11.0 points and 7.4 rebounds while shooting 64.5 percent from the field in three seasons at Belmont Abbey, helping the Crusaders qualify for two Division II Tournaments.
 
"He has a similar game to what I've seen of Laolu – an inside rebounder, a ball-screen roller," Ficke said. "Laolu might have been a bit thicker. But he can bring a similar defensive-type mentality. He's such a rim-runner, and he can play above the rim, which is an element we didn't have last year."
 
Garrett averaged 8.4 points and 3.3 assists in two seasons at Belmont Abbey, scoring a total of 413 points.
 
"We want to play up-tempo, and KJ fits that perfectly," Ficke said. "From end-to-end, he's one of the fastest guys I've ever seen."
 
Maslow, a 6-7 player with a quality 3-point shot, typically came off the bench in his two seasons at Belmont Abbey, averaging 6.1 points and shooting 38.5 percent from 3 (84 of 218).
 
The Belmont Abbey transfers will have to make some adjustments in moving from Conference Carolinas to the RMAC.
 
"Our league is better than Conference Carolinas, in my opinion, and I imagine the rankings say the same," Ficke said. "The size in our league, night in and night out, is going to be a major difference for them, and it's more so the guards than the big men. Our league is more physical, too."
 
Also joining the fray are a pair of freshman forwards, 6-6 Marzouq Ibn Abdur-Razaaq and 6-7 Caden Holmes.
 
"We have two freshmen who have really taken major strides over the course of the preseason and can be solid contributors off the bench," Ficke said.
 
Rounding out the roster are another Belmont Abbey transfer in forward Blake Hadley as well as guards Camden Smithburg and Jackson McAdams.
 
Beyond just this weekend, Ficke has a tough non-conference season scheduled.
 
The Roadrunners open the season playing neutral site games against Lone Star Conference opponents Arkansas-Fort Smith and Oklahoma Christian, Nov. 10 and 11 in Spearfish, S.D.
 
And though those teams are picked to finish in the bottom half of the Lone Star, Ficke went ahead and scheduled a road game at league favorite and perennial Division II power West Texas A&M for Nov. 16.
 
"I wanted to test us early with our schedule," Ficke said. "West Texas was a, 'Let's see where we stack up compared to where we want to be.' I wanted us to be tested by the time we get to the opening weekend of the RMAC season, when we play Colorado Mesa and Westminster (at home), and then go play at Black Hills State and South Dakota Mines. We want to be battle-tested by the time we get to December."
 
MSU Denver's first home game is Nov. 19 at noon against Fort Hays State (Kan.), a traditionally strong Division II team picked to finish third in the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association.
 
After Thanksgiving Weekend home games with Seattle Pacific and Simon Fraser (B.C.), the league season starts Dec. 1 against Westminster.
 
After finishing in a tie for seventh in the RMAC last year, MSU Denver was picked to place sixth in the league's preseason coaches' poll.
 
"We're deeper than we were last year, and we obviously have more experience, more guys who have played at least one year of college basketball," Ficke said. "Now we have to come together as a group and hone in to what we do on both sides of the ball.
 
"We want to be at our best at the end of January, all through February and into March. We want to get better each week of the season and not be a team that peaks in December – that's why we're testing ourselves out of conference. We want to take the lessons we learn into conference play."