NCAA Division II Elite Eight - Ford Center, Evansville, Ind.
Elite Eight - #6 Mines vs. #13 Lincoln Memorial, Wednesday, 11 a.m. MT [Live Video] [Live Stats]
Final Four - Thursday, 5 p.m. MT [TV: CBS Sports]
National Final - Saturday, 10 a.m. MT [TV: CBS]
Mines Media Notes
 

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ELITE IN EVANSVILLE
Colorado School of Mines will take on Lincoln Memorial in Wednesday's NCAA Elite Eight round, kicking off the first of four games at the Ford Center in Evansville, Ind. with a 12 p.m. CT/11 a.m. MT start. The Orediggers (18-2) advanced by winning the West regional thanks to victories over Biola and Northwest Nazarene. LMU (18-3) won the Southeast region with victories over Tusculum (80-66) and Emmanuel (103-67).

ELITE EIGHT COVERAGE
The national quarterfinals on Wednesday will stream live on ncaa.com. The final four will air on CBS Sports Network on Thursday, and the national championship game on Saturday will air on CBS. Should Mines advance, their national semifinal would be Thursday at 5 p.m. MT, and the final is Saturday at 10 a.m. MT.
 
WE STILL NEVER TALK SOMETIMES
This will be the first ever meeting between Mines and Lincoln Memorial. The two were drawn on opposite sides of the bracket in the 2017 Elite Eight when Mines was the fifth seed and LMU the third.

A RETURN ENGAGEMENT
This will be the second Elite Eight appearance for the Orediggers, who played in the 2017 edition in Sioux Falls, S.D. Mines did not advance out of the national quarterfinals that year, falling to Bellarmine 92-72. Overall, Mines is in its 11th NCAA Tournament and eighth consecutive, all coming under Pryor Orser since 2010.

RECAPPING THE WEST REGIONAL
The second seed in the West regional, Mines had little trouble advancing to the Elite Eight thanks to blowout wins over Biola (83-52) and Northwest Nazarene (84-52). Against Biola, Ben Boone led Mines with 19 points and Kobi Betts poured in 14 as the Mines defense was outstanding, holding the Eagles to 52 points and their leading scorer, Alex Wright, scoreless. Mines shot an impressive .579 for the game including 9-of-16 (.563) for three while holding Biola to .379. In the regional final against the Cinderella NNU squad that had knocked off #1 Colorado Mesa, Boone scored 13 points and keyed the defense again while Brendan Sullivan led all scorers with 19 and Trent Dykema sparked a big Mines bench effort with a career-high 17 as both were named to the all-regional team.

OREDIGGERS VS. RAILSPLITTERS
The Mines-Lincoln Memorial game will feature one of the great nickname match-ups in college sports when the Orediggers take on the Railsplitters. The Oredigger nickname is fairly self-explanatory considering the university's mining pedigree. A Railsplitter refers to Abraham Lincoln, who used the nickname during the 1860 presidential election; an image of Lincoln as a railsplitter appeared on a special United States penny in 2009, the copper for which was probably mined by an Oredigger.

WITH US IN SPIRIT
Unfortunately, Mines' universally beloved mascot, Blaster the Burro, won't make the trip to Evansville. He doesn't fly well, and the NCAA has a thing about burros running on hardwood surfaces. But one of the most unique mascots anywhere - "the single greatest mascot in all of NCAA sports" according to the Evansville Courier & Press' Ryan Reynolds - will be with Mines in spirit; he traditionally runs the field with his handlers after football touchdowns, and the mascot version of Blaster, teamed up with the grizzled Marvin the Miner, are mainstays at basketball games. 

STYLES CLASH
The Mines-LMU game has the potential to be one of the most intriguing of the NCAA Division II tournament with one of the nation's top defenses taking on a top offense. Mines owns NCAA Division II's #3 overall scoring defense at 60.5 points per game, the best in the Elite Eight, and the Orediggers allowed only 52 points in each of their first two NCAA Tournament games against Biola and Northwest Nazarene. On the other side, Lincoln Memorial ranks #5 in D-II in scoring offense with a whopping 92.8 points per game, and they are #1 in scoring margin (+22.8) and #2 in field goal percentage (.527); they scored 103 in the Southeast regional final against Emmanuel.

IN THE POLLS
Mines heads into the Elite Eight ranked #6 in the final regular-season NABC top-25 coaches' poll; Lincoln Memorial is #13. Mines spent six weeks at #1 in January and February in the poll, while LMU topped out at #4 in late January.

THE COACHING MATCH-UP
Pryor Orser enters the NCAA Tournament 379-200 in his 20th season with the Orediggers; all 11 of Mines' NCAA appearances have come under Orser, including both Elite Eight trips. A four-time national coach of the year, Josh Schertz is in his final days at the head man at LMU as he's accepted the Indiana State job once the season is over. Schertz is 336-68 in his 13th season with the Railsplitters.

DEFENSIVELY SPEAKING
How good has Mines' defense been this season? Through 20 games, opponents have scored 55 or fewer points nine times, including 50 or less five times. Opponents average 14.4 turnovers per game against the Orediggers. And the blocks - well, we'll get to that. All five members of the starting lineup own plus-minuses of +9.8 per game or better, topped out by Brendan Sullivan (+13.5/gm), Ben Boone (+12.2/gm), and Kobi Betts (+12.1/gm).

NO NO NO
Mines ranks #6 in D-II - and tops among Elite Eight teams - in rim protection, averaging 4.8 blocks per game this season. Four players average 0.8 blocks per game or better - Austin Means (1.0), Brendan Sullivan (0.9), Michael Glen (0.8), and Kai Barr (0.8).

GLEN RANKS AMONG FRONTCOURT GREATS
Senior Michael Glen has consistently been a frontcourt standout in his career as a four-year starter at both power forward and center. Now with 159 career blocks, he is just three short of tying the Mines program record of 162 held by Trevor Wages. Glen is the only player in program history with 1,000+ points, 700+ rebounds, and 150+ blocks (he has 1,280, 753, and 159, respectively), and he is Mines' active leading career scorer.

BOONE'S BREAKOUT
Ben Boone was named the NCAA West Regional's most outstanding player as much for his defensive presence as for his offensive pop; he scored 19 points against Biola in the second round and 13 against Northwest Nazarene in the Sweet 16, but his contributions on the other end stood out. Against Biola, he helped hold their leading scorer Alex Wright to zero points in 39 minutes, and against NNU, their leading scorer was against shut down as Ezekiel Alley was limited to 10 points on 4-of-16 shooting.

OFF THE BENCH
The Oredigger bench was outstanding through the NCAA West regional, contributing an average of 34 points per game (30 vs. Biola, 38 vs. Northwest Nazarene). Titus Reed, who has averaged 7.7 points per game as Mines' sixth man this season, scored 11 and 6, respectively, but it was the emergence of two youngsters that was most notable. Trent Dykema earned a spot on the all-tournament team by going off for a career-high 17 points in the final against NNU; Dykema drained 6-of-8 shots and averaged 12.0 points per game on the weekend. Kai Barr was outstanding in the frontcourt rotation with successive career scoring highs, coming in for 8 points, 4 rebounds, and two blocks vs. Biola before collecting 9 points, a career-high 10 rebounds, and a career-best three blocks vs. NNU.

TAKING CARE
A large part of Mines' success has been taking care of the ball. The Orediggers have just 8.75 turnovers per game in the postseason (below their season average of 11.9 per game), compared to 14.5 per game for opponents. Opponents have had double-digit turnovers in 19 of 20 games this season, with only one team - Black Hills State on Jan. 4 with nine - avoiding that fate.

SULLIVAN, BETTS EARN NABC RECOGNITION
On Monday, the Orediggers had two players named to the NABC All-West district teams with Brendan Sullivan earning a first-team nod and Kobi Betts a second-team spot. It's the latest postseason honor for Sullivan, who was also the RMAC Player of the Year, Academic Player of the Year, and First-Team All-RMAC; Betts joined him as a First-Team All-RMAC selection. Sullivan leads Mines scoring 18.0 points per game, and adds 4.0 rebounds, 2.2 assists, 1.4 steals, and 0.9 blocks per game while shooting .546 overall and .409 for three. Betts averages 12.3 points, 3.1 rebounds, 1.9 assists, and 1.0 steals per game, shooting .450 overall, .463 for three, and .796 at the line.

STARTING FIVE NAMED ALL-RMAC
When the RMAC postseason honors were announced on March 4, the entire Mines starting five earned all-RMAC honors: Betts and Sullivan as First-Team All-RMAC selections, while Michael Glen was a second-teamer and Ben Boone and Austin Means were selected as honorable mention.

GETTING IT DONE OFF THE COURT, TOO
Brendan Sullivan isn't just a monster on the court - he gets it done in the classroom, too. The civil engineering major was named the RMAC Academic Player of the Year as a junior, and he was a CoSIDA Academic All-District selection in 2019-20 as a sophomore in his first year of eligibility. Sullivan is also a two-time Academic All-RMAC First-Team selection. 

A SHORTENED SEASON
Teams all over the country have struggled to get games in this season, and Mines has been no different. Typically having 30 or more games under the belts by this point of the season, the Orediggers have played only 20 (including four postseason contests), and managed to get in just 15 of 22 scheduled RMAC games due to COVID-19 protocols being in effect both within and outside the program.

GOOD TO SEE YOU AGAIN
One other effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on this season is that Mines has not played in front of spectators in a single game this season, home or away. That will change in Evansville, where the Ford Center is permitted to hold 25 percent of its capacity. It's the only time in program history this has happened; even during the 1918-19 influenza pandemic, which caused the season to be delayed to a late January start, basketball fans were still admitted, although Mines football played behind closed doors that year.

VISITING THE HOOSIER STATE
The Mines roster doesn't have any Indiana connections, but a few are close. Freshman Taylor Spurlock got to fly into his home state of Kentucky when the Orediggers arrived in Louisville; his hometown of Coalgood, Ky. is 353 miles southeast of Evansville in the southeast corner of Kentucky. Paul O'Leary, from Lemont, Ill., is from 320 miles in the other direction out of the Chicago suburbs. The university's most prominent Indiana alumnus is probably Lebanon native and football quarterback Isaac Harker, who played for Indiana State before transferring to Mines, and he is now a member of the CFL's Saskatchewan Roughriders.

RARE AIR
Golden, Colo. - which sits at the edge of the Rocky Mountains' foothills - is where Mines calls home, and the Orediggers' home of Lockridge Arena sits at 5,820' above sea level. Not only is that 5,433' feet higher than Evansville, the Ford Center will be the lowest elevation Mines has been to this season by nearly 3,000' - the Orediggers haven't been below 3,300' since playing at Chadron State in Nebraska on Jan. 3. The last time Mines was near sea level was for the Hoops In Hawaii Classic in December 2019.