ALAMOSA, Colo. – The MSU Denver men's basketball team has earned the right to play another day.
The Roadrunners capped the regular season with a 75-70 victory Saturday night at Adams State and, combined with favorable results from around the league, were able to secure the eighth and final spot in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Tournament.
MSU Denver (12-16 overall) will play a first-round game Tuesday at Colorado Mesa, which earned the top seed after Colorado School of Mines knocked off Fort Lewis, forcing Fort Lewis to share the regular-season conference championship. Mesa earned the tournament's top seed based on a head-to-head win over Fort Lewis.
MSU Denver got a big Saturday night lift from New Mexico Highlands, which knocked off UCCS to play itself into a four-way tie for seventh with MSU Denver, UCCS and Regis – with all of those teams finishing 9-13 in league play. Had UCCS won, it would have been the seventh seed and Regis would have been the No. 8 seed based on its head-to-head win over the Roadrunners.
But with four teams involved in the tie, Regis became the No. 7 seed because it was undefeated against the other tied teams. Then, among the remaining tied teams, Highlands swept UCCS, UCCS beat MSU Denver and MSU Denver beat Highlands, so the tiebreaking process went to the "performance indicator" where point values are assigned to each game based on the result, the quality of the opponent and the site of the game. And MSU Denver had the highest point total among the tied teams.
"When you're trying to build and you want to have your guys commit to the way you want to play and to your culture, you're having to delay gratitude," first-year MSU Denver coach Dan Ficke said. "And these days sometimes that's a foreign concept. So it's a great reward for our guys for staying committed and coming back from a tough start to fight and battle. Now they can say they got to go to the postseason despite how tough things have been at times.
"It's a great experience for our young guys to be able to play in the postseason, so they can experience the intensity, how every possession matters and how hard you have to play. And it's a chance for our seniors, like Tyrei (Randall), to get one more chance and seeing what can happen."
In Saturday's win against Adams State, Randall scored 24 points while making 4 of 8 from 3-point range, and
Caleb McGill added 15 points, seven rebounds, three assists and two blocked shots.
The Roadrunners took control of the game midway through the first half and led 70-52 with 6:30 to play.
"Early on, we threw the ball all over," Ficke said. "But once we settled down and started guarding, we were able to get whatever we wanted and we got their two best players in foul trouble. Tyrei stepped up and made some big shots, Caleb had a nice night, and the rest of it was by committee – everyone did a little here and a little there."
MSU Denver still led by 10 points with 60 seconds left before Adams State finished with a late flurry, making a free throw, adding a 3-pointer with 27 seconds left and then a layup with 18 seconds left to suddenly make it 72-67.
The Roadrunners'
Quave Propst-Allison made a free throw with 14 seconds left, but Adams State answered with another 3 to make it 73-70 with seven seconds to go.
Finally, Propst-Allison made two more free throws with five seconds left to clinch it.
"I would have liked to finish the game better, but we're still a young team learning how to do that," Ficke said. "When you're up big, you can't relax. You have to keep pushing because other teams aren't going to let up and they were fighting – they didn't want to lose their last game."
With the win and some help, this wasn't MSU Denver's last game.
"There's nothing better than March basketball," Ficke said. "Even though it's technically February (the first round game is Feb. 28), it's still March basketball and we're excited about it."
