DENVER – Pay heed all who play MSU Denver in women's basketball. And beware of "The February."
 
Apologies to Kansas fans and their famous admonition for foes to pay heed and beware of "The Phog," the nickname for the arena named after their legendary former coach.
 
But throughout Tanya Haave's 14 seasons as the Roadrunners' coach, the final full month of the regular season has been her team's time to shine.
 
Even in this season, which has been a difficult one in terms of wins and losses, MSU Denver opened the month with a fairly historic road sweep of weekend games at Adams State and Fort Lewis.
 
"You try to get a team to jell, and at first you have to take a dip before you go up," Haave said. "We did take a big dip this year. And not all seasons are like that, either. But it's always your goal to be playing your best at the end of the year.
 
"I've learned some lessons in the past by running some teams into the ground – I've done that before. So you try to keep it fresh, keep it fun. It's such a team concept that sometimes you sacrifice in the short term for the good of the long term."
 
Under Haave, the Roadrunners are 72-27 (.727 winning percentage) in the month of February. They've been even better the last eight years, going 42-14 (.750) in the second month of the calendar year. In all other months under Haave, the Roadrunners have a solid .579 winning percentage.
 
MSU Denver's second set of February games this season are at home, Friday at 5 p.m. against South Dakota Mines and Saturday at 3:30 p.m. against Black Hills State.
 
The Roadrunners, who have regularly played one of the most difficult November non-conference schedules in the region, are hoping to reap the rewards with a late-season push.
 
"This year it was way above what we were ready for," Haave said of her team's non-conference schedule. "But I think the non-conference schedule eventually helps. Maybe it's cost us early, but it always helps to play good competition."
 
Now if the Roadrunners can find a way to play at their peak at home, things could get interesting in the final few weeks. MSU Denver, solid at 3-5 in road games with three excruciating losses, is just 2-8 at home.
 
MSU Denver is 5-14 overall and 4-10 in Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference play, but has also lost four league games in the final 75 seconds – three of them in the final 10 seconds and two of those in the final four seconds. One of those was Dec. 9 at South Dakota Mines (5-15, 5-9) which made two free throws with four seconds left for a 63-62 victory.
 
"We've got to establish what we do and push the tempo," Haave said. "It would be nice to have a good, solid game on our home floor."
 
Black Hills State is 12-6 overall and 9-5 for sixth place in the RMAC. The Yellow Jackets thumped MSU Denver 58-38 in the teams' Dec. 8 matchup.
 
"We played into what they wanted us to do, and I didn't do a good enough job of adjusting and doing some different things," Haave said. "We need to be able to handle their trapping better."
 
Black Hills State is known for applying defensive pressure, but perhaps no team is the league is known for it more at the present time than Adams State. And while MSU Denver had 36 turnovers last Friday against the Grizzlies, the team also knocked down 13 3-pointers in a wild overtime victory that snapped a five-game losing streak.
 
The Roadrunners followed that up with a 61-55 win the next night at Fort Lewis, completing a weekend winning streak against those teams for the first time in nine tries during Haave's tenure.
 
"It's amazing what the one win at Adams to get us over the top did – for our confidence and just to relieve some pressure," Haave said.
 
With eight games left in the regular season, MSU Denver would have to have another fabulous February to even get into contention for one of the eight spots in the league tournament that would extend its season.
 
In six full seasons under the current conference format, only once (last year) has a team qualified for the RMAC Tournament with a 9-13 record. Teams at 10-12 made the tournament in two other years.
 
So, MSU Denver would need to go 5-3 (to get to 9-13) or 6-2 (to get to 10-12) to have a chance. And two of their remaining eight regular-season games are in March.
 
But beware. It is February.
 
"We're not out of it," Haave said. "But we need to go on a good run and probably get a little help."