DENVER – After a high-flying first half against nationally-ranked Colorado Mesa, the MSU Denver men's basketball team found the second half to be a much tougher situation.
The Roadrunners, after shooting 56.0 percent from the field in taking a 43-34 halftime lead, connected on just 6 of 23 (26.1 percent) after the break while committing 11 of its 17 turnovers in the final 20 minutes. Colorado Mesa, ranked Nos. 19 and 22 in Division II, came back from a 43-34 deficit, outscored the Roadrunners 37-21 in the second half, and escaped with a 71-64 victory.
"When you're playing a top-15, top-20 team like that, they're going to ramp it up in the second half," Ficke said. "That's where we've got to learn to stand our ground better in the second half."
It's the second near miss in two weeks for MSU Denver, 10-14 overall and 7-11 in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference, which had an eight-point lead with 90 seconds to play against nationally-ranked Fort Lewis on Jan. 28, but lost 77-76.
"Four of our top five scorers are freshman or sophomores," Ficke said. "And even as we're still in the hunt to continue to play, I feel good about what we've done to this point.
"You always think about the ones you want to have back – like tonight and like Fort Lewis. But that's part of the process of building, going through these types of losses to learn so that we're in this position next year they'll know what they've got to do coming out of halftime in a game like this."
MSU Denver held the lead for nearly 25 minutes in the game, compared to just over 11 minutes for Mesa (the game was tied for the remaining time), and despite a slugging start to the second half had recovered well enough to take a 63-57 lead on
Brayden Maldonado's 3-pointer with 7:17 to play.
But one Maldonado free throw, with 4:38 to go, was the only point MSU Denver got the rest of the way. The Roadrunners missed all six of their field goal tries – all of them 3s – and had six turnovers in their final 13 possessions.
"Hats off to our guys," Ficke said. "They played extremely hard. We looked great for about 35 minutes, but we just couldn't finish. Our late-game decision-making wasn't what we needed it be, and I take that on me as a coach. I've got to put them in better positions to take care of the ball."
Caleb McGill led MSU Denver with 14 points,
Jaden Kennis had 13,
Tyrei Randall scored 12 and
Brayden Maldonado added 11.
In the wild scramble for the final two spots – the Nos. 7 and 8 seeds – in the RMAC Tournament, MSU Denver slipped slightly from a five-way tie for seventh into a five-way tie for eighth.
"We've got to handle our business next weekend," Ficke said. "Two teams coming in, one we owe (Chadron State) and one we haven't played (Colorado Christian). It's two teams I feel we can compete against. We've got to handle those games and then go get a split on the road (at Adams State and at Fort Lewis) and hopefully that will give us a chance."
