#18 Mines (1-1) vs. Lubbock Christian (1-1) – Friday, 2 p.m. CT – San Antonio, Texas [Live Stats] [LSC Digital Network PVV]
#18 Mines (1-1) at St. Mary's (TX) (0-0) – Saturday, 4 p.m. CT – San Antonio, Texas [Live Stats] [LSC Digital Network PPV]

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DOWN IN THE HEART OF TEXAS
After starting the season with a trip to Florid last week, the #18 Colorado School of Mines men's basketball team will be on the road once again this weekend as they head to the Lone Star State for regional crossover action with Lubbock Christian and St. Mary's (TX) in San Antonio Friday and Saturday.
 
LIVE COVERAGE
Coverage of this weekend's game will be available on a pay per view basis on the Lone Star Conference Digital Network and have live stats through StatBroadcast.
 
AT THE HELM
The 2023-24 season will be the 23rd for the Orediggers under the guidance of head coach Pryor Orser. Already the winningest coach in program history, he eclipsed the 400-win mark in November of last season and has a career record of 422-219 overall and a mark of 300-150 in Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference play, the second-most wins in conference history. Under Orser, Mines has won five RMAC regular-season championships and two RMAC Tournament titles, and qualified for 12 NCAA Tournaments including two Elite Eight trips. 
 
THE CAPTAINS
Second-year graduate transfer Sam Beskind and redshirt sophomore guard Cade Mankle will serve as captains for the Orediggers in 2023-24. Beskind burst onto the RMAC scene last year, averaging 9.3 points, 4.2 rebounds and 3.8 assists per game while also shooting .481/.338/.835 on the season and ranking second in the conference in total assists with 120 and leading the league in assist to turnover ratio at 2.2. Mankle split time between the starting five and the bench rotation in his first season of action last year, averaging 4.4 points and 1.6 assists per game while shooting .397/.310/.542 for the year.
 
IN THE POLLS
The initial NABC Top 25 poll of the season was released on Tuesday October 21 and saw the Orediggers ranked at #18 to begin the new season. Northwest Missouri State headlined the first rankings of the year, earning 10 first place votes, and was joined in the top five by defending national champion Nova Southeastern in second, national runner-up West Liberty in third with Indiana (Pa.) and Indianapolis in fourth and fifth respectively. Both of Mines' opening weekend opponents, Bentley and Mercyhurst, are included in the initial rankings of the season, with the Falcons ranked #16 and the Lakers ranked #25. Three other RMAC schools also appeared in the Top 25 this week, with Colorado Mesa at #14, Fort Lewis at #15 and Black Hills State at #17.
 
Speaking of the RMAC, Mines earned a trio of first place votes and was picked to finish third in the league season behind Colorado Mesa, who earned eight first place votes, and Fort Lewis who earned four. Black Hills State and Chadron State rounded out the rest of the top five.
 
WEEK 1 RECAP
Mines opened the 2023-24 season in the Sunshine State at the Small College Basketball Hall of Fame Classic, hosted by Florida Southern. The Orediggers dropped a 69-51 decision to #16 Bentley on opening day Saturday, but rebounded in a big way Sunday to knock off #25 Mercyhurst in a thriller 65-62 behind a 31-point outing from transfer Majok Deng and 11 from Sam Beskind. Both Deng and Beskind were selected to the 11-man All-Tournament team, making Mines one of three teams to have multiple honorees from the weekend. Several new faces also made their debuts over the weekend, with freshman Alex Romack getting the start in each game and proving to be a force on the glass, coming down with 17 boards to lead the effort defensively. Redshirt freshman Dom Girish made his debut Saturday and scored the first points of his career, as did first year players Jonathan Moore and Markus Pastorcic-Straun along with junior college transfer Juani Dassie.
 
WELL HELLO THERE
Head Coach Pryor Orser welcomed seven newcomers to Golden for the 2023-24 season in perhaps one of the deepest and most talented signing classes he's had in his 23 years at Mines. The class is comprised of two transfers in Juani Dassie from the junior college ranks and Majok Deng who brings four years of Division I experience from Pepperdine, along with five freshman from all across the country.
 
The freshman class includes Fort Collins native and one of the most prolific three-point shooters in Colorado state high school history in Silas McCurnin and Ontario native Markus Pastorcic-Straun who was a two-sport standout on the hardwood and on the track at Cape Fear Academy in North Carolina. Those two are joined by a trio of big men hailing from coast-to-coast and including points in between. Derek Lamb arrives from California where he averaged close to a double-double in his prep career. Jonathan Moore excelled in four sports during his time at Newsome High School in Florida, averaging better than 12 PPG during his last two seasons of basketball while also excelling in volleyball, track and field and soccer. Rounding out that group is Alex Romack out of Westfield, Indiana, who averaged a double-double of 17 points and 10 rebounds per game as a senior.
 
You can read more about each of the newcomers by reviewing the Signing Day recap here.
 
HE'S LIKE THAT
Majok Deng had himself about as good of a debut weekend as he, head coach Pryor Orser or anyone associated with the Mines basketball program could have hoped for. He connected on the first shot attempt of his career Saturday against Bentley, finishing the game with 11 points on 4-12 shooting, recording his first double-figure game since March 22, 2021 when he was still at Pepperdine in the quarterfinals of the College Basketball Invitational against Longwood. Sunday against Mercyhurst, he was even better, starting the game 5-5 from the floor and 4-4 from downtown, again scoring the first points of the game before going on to finish with 31 points on 9-11 shooting that including a 6-8 outing from deep and 7-8 from the free throw line in 37 minutes. In just one weekend as an Oredigger, he logged 42 points, nearly 63% of his career scoring total in four seasons with the Waves. Just goes to show, when someone if put in the right place with the right opportunity, great things abound.
 
HOMECOMING WEEKEND
It'll be a homecoming weekend of sorts for the two Texans on the Mines roster this weekend. Senior Grant Pressly hails from Plano and redshirt sophomore guard Cade Mankle claims West Lake Hills as his hometown. During his prep career, Pressly averaged 12 points, four rebounds and three assists as a senior while going for 10/3/3 as a junior. Mankle earned All-District honors and was part of a 2021 6A State Finalist team that went undefeated to win the District 25-6A title during a 30-2 season. An All-State Tournament First Team selection and two-time All-District honoree as well, Mankle averaged 13/5/3 as a senior.
 
LOOKING AT THE STATS
Through one weekend of play, Majok Deng is Mines' leading scorer at 21.0 PPG, shooting .565 from the floor and .500 from three with six rebounds and three assists. Sam Beskind is second on the list at 8.0 PPG while also logging four rebounds and three assists per game while shooting .375. Riley Schroeder follows at 7.0 PPG while Alex Romack is the team's leading rebounder, averaging 8.5 per game while scoring 5.5 per night. Juani Dassie (5.5 PPG. 3.0 RPG) has a trio of three pointers to his credit this season and will likely be one of the team leaders in that category as the season goes.
 
After two games, the Orediggers are averaging 58.0 PPG while opponents are good of 65.5 per night. Mines is shooting .436/.333/.600 so far compared to .439/.238/.929 on the other side. They are collecting 33 rebounds per game and dishing out 12.5 assists and will need to cut down on turnovers moving ahead, as they currently are averaging 15.5 per night and are forcing 8.5, including 5.5 steals.
 
SCOUTING LUBBOCK CHRISTIAN
The Chaps also started their season last weekend, participating in the D2 CCA Tipoff Classic on their home court in Lubbock, picking up an opening night win over #6 Lincoln Memorial 89-71 before dropping their second game of the weekend to #RV Northern Michigan 83-69.
 
Currently four players are averaging double-figure scoring for LCU, led by Texas Tech Ethan Duncan at 17.0 PPG after going for 16 and 18 in the first two games, shooting .433 from the field and .500 from three-point land with three assists and two steals. Najeeb Muhammad started the new season right where he left off last season, averaging 16.0 PPG and saw him drop 19 points on opening day. He's currently shooting .706 from the floor with just five misses on the season and .625 from long range. Kendall Dow checks in at 15.5 PPG and is shooting .667 from the field and .500 from three while Tiras Morton, a transfer from Texas A&M International, is currently averaging a double-double on the season with 13.5 points and 10 rebounds per contest, posting a double-double with 12 points and 12 boards in their loss to Northern Michigan.
 
As a team, LCU is averaging 79.0 points per game and allowing 77.0 while shooting .487/.397/.610 with opponents shooting .456/.368/.643. The Chaps have been vulnerable on the glass in the early going, allowing 40.0 rebounds per night while pulling down just 28.5 themselves. They average 11.0 assists, 9.5 turnovers, 5.5 blocks and 2.5 steals per game and force 11 turnovers per night.
 
SCOUTING ST. MARY'S (TX)
The Rattlers will be taking the court for the first time in the 2023-24 season this weekend, first taking on Regis on Friday evening before squaring off with Mines on Saturday. St. Mary's is coming off a year in which they went 15-13 overall and 12-10 in the Lone Star Conference, qualifying for the LSC tournament but getting upended in the first round by Texas A&M-Kingsville 66-61.
 
The Rattlers' roster makeup features a very experienced group that includes 10 fourth- or fifth-year senior along with three juniors, two third-year sophomores and two second-year freshmen. Utilizing the transfer portal to their advantage, St. Mary's landed four transfers from Division I in Keith Dinwiddie (Weber State), Davion Coleman (Texas State), Lachlan Bofinger (UTSA) and Seny N'Diaye (UCS Upstate). Dinwiddie arrives in San Antonio after three seasons at the Division I level, starting his career at San Diego State and playing two seasons with the Aztecs before joining the Wildcats last season, averaging 4.5 PPG and shooting .300 from the floor. Coleman started his career at Blinn College before playing two seasons with Texas State, where he averaged 2.8 points and 1.4 rebounds per game and shot .364 from the field. Bofinger, a forward from Australia, spent two seasons with the Roadrunners and played in 49 games for UTSA, averaging 3.5 points and 3.9 rebounds per game as a sophomore and shooting .485 from the field. N'Diaye, a 6-10 forward from Senegal, is also at this third school in four years, started his collegiate career at West Virginia and played two seasons with the Mountaineers before playing last season with the Spartans, averaging 1.6 points and 2.9 rebounds and shooting .450 from the floor.
 
Additionally, they added two players from the junior college ranks in Micah Jones (13.0 PPG, 3.3 RPG, 2.0 APG) from New Mexico JC and Franklin Agu (11.4 PPG, 6.3 RPG, .578 FG%) from Western Wyoming.
 
The leading returning scorer from a year ago for the Rattlers is Tyler Caron, a 6'9" forward who averaged 12.4 points and 4.1 rebounds last season who started all 28 games and shot .415/.386/.887 last season. Also back are Jalon Johnson (8.2 PPG, 3.1 RPG, .463 FG%), Edward Manuel (4.4 PPG, 3.2 RPG) and John Dawson (4.3 PPG, .433 FG%).
 
SERIES HISTORY
Friday will be the 10th meeting all-time between Lubbock Christian and Mines, with the Orediggers leading 5-4 and winners last time the teams met in regional crossover action last year by a score 69-66 in Denver. However, in four previous meetings with the Chaps in Texas, Mines is just 1-3 with their win coming in Lubbock back in 2016. Saturday's meeting with St. Mary's will be the ninth all-time matchup, as again the Orediggers lead the series 6-2 and are coming off an 87-65 win in last year's regional crossover. In three previous meetings against the Rattlers in Texas, Mines is 2-1 including a 61-56 win in San Antonio in 2018.
 
LOOKING AHEAD
The Orediggers close out their season-opening five-game road trip next Saturday November 18 with trip to Colorado Springs for a non-conference bout with UCCS before opening up play at Lockridge Arena on Monday November 20 against Williams Baptist.

Fans can keep up with Mines men's basketball on Twitter and Instagram at @minesmbb. They can also keep up with Colorado School of Mines Athletics all year long on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram using the handle @MinesAthletics.