DENVER – With four weekends left in the regular season, five teams are within ½ games of one another in the battle for fourth place and what is likely the final remaining home-court berth for the opening round of the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Tournament.
 
MSU Denver, at 7-7 in league play, is one of those teams and is a combined 3-1 against the rest of the teams in that group.
 
But two of those teams are at the Auraria Event Center for rematches in a big weekend of basketball.
 
First South Dakota Mines comes to town Friday at 7 p.m. looking to earn a split in the season series after MSU Denver picked up a 95-87 road win back on Dec. 9. On Saturday it will be MSU Denver looking for the split while trying to settle the score with Black Hills State, which defended its home court with a 75-56 win against the Roadrunners on Dec. 8.
 
"Black Hills is right above us and South Dakota Mines is right with us in terms of seeding," MSU Denver coach Dan Ficke said. "Obviously these two games will be huge, and we've got to be able to handle them.
 
"With the schedule we have remaining, we have a good draw, even though we have four road games coming up after this weekend. It's just a matter of being able to finish things the right way."
 
Fort Lewis, Colorado Mesa and Colorado School of Mines have distanced themselves from the rest of the league and appear to have the top three seeds all but locked up. That leaves Regis (9-6), Black Hills State (8-6), Chadron State (8-7), MSU Denver (7-7) and South Dakota Mines (7-7) in the race for fourth place.
 
"On Monday, we talked with the team about having 30 days left in the season, because we were 30 days away from the first round," Ficke said. "Everything we do for the next 30 days has to be about earning a 31^st day. Our goal is to be 1-0 every day with the things we can control. We want to renew our sense of purpose. The light at the end of the tunnel is getting bigger now and we want our season to end the right way. We don't want to rest on what we did in November. We want to finish strong when postseason comes."
 
Back in November, MSU Denver rose to the national top 10 while going 7-0, including a win over West Texas A&M – that's still the only loss the Buffaloes, now ranked No. 1 in Division II, have suffered all season.
 
A close loss to Colorado Mesa the first weekend of league play in early December was a setback, sure, but wasn't cause for too much alarm.
 
The following week, though, the Roadrunners were pushed around a bit and didn't shoot well in a loss at Black Hills State. The Yellow Jackets were coming off another run to the Division II Final Four, but National Player of the Year Joel Scott was – and still is – starting for Colorado State.
 
"We took an early lead, but they punched right back at us," Ficke said. "They have a great coach, a great player in (RMAC scoring leader Matthew) Ragsdale and everyone embraces their roles. They have a winning culture, and it doesn't matter if Joel Scott is there or not. They have talent and they can beat you."
 
South Dakota Mines features a pair of terrific guards in Cameron Cohn (18.7 points per game) and Alejandro Rama (18.1), who combined for 58 points on a night when MSU Denver was called for 26 fouls and surrendered 38 free throw attempts.
 
"We have to make South Dakota Mines play through their third and fourth guys instead of through those two," Ficke said. "Both teams this weekend play a similar style offensively and we're going to have to guard ball screens and shut down their top scorers much better than we did the first time."