(2) #7/9 Mines (27-4, 18-2 RMAC) vs. (7) West Texas A&M (19-11, 13-9 LSC) – Saturday, 2:30 p.m. CT –Dallas, Texas [Live Stats] [FloCollege PPV] [Tickets] [Championship Central]
South Central Regional Semifinal – Sunday, 5 p.m. CT
South Central Regional Championship – Tuesday, 7 p.m. CT

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BRIGHT LIGHTS, BIG STAGE
Fresh off a sweep of the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference titles this season, the #7/9 Colorado School of Mines men's basketball team will look to continue their winning ways heading into the postseason as they head to Dallas for the opening rounds of the 2025 NCAA Division II Men's Basketball Championship as the number two seed in the South Central Region staring down a matchup with seventh-seeded West Texas A&M on Saturday afternoon.
 
FAN INFORMATION
Fans planning to attend this weekend's regional at the Berg Center in Dallas are encouraged to purchase their tickets online. In person sales at the door will also be available. General admission session passes, good for two games, are priced at $20. Students of participating institutions with their ID will get discounted tickets at $15. All-session passes for the duration of the regional are priced at $35 and $25 for adults and students respectively. Parking information for the DBU campus can be accessed here.
 
LIVE COVERAGE
This weekend's games will be available for streaming on FloCollege. A subscription is required in order to view the games, which starts at $19.99 per month. Free live stats will be available for each game through StatBroadcast. Links for video and stats for both matches can be found on minesathletics.com.
 
AT THE HELM
The 2024-25 season will be the 24th for the Orediggers under the guidance of head coach Pryor Orser. The winningest coach in the history of the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference, Orser's record stands at 472-231 overall and a mark of 335-157 in league play. Under Orser, Mines has won five RMAC regular-season championships and two RMAC Tournament titles and qualified for 13 NCAA Tournaments including two Elite Eight trips. 
 
IN THE POLLS
Mines lived up to the advance billing when it came to the RMAC in the 2024-25 season. The preseason favorites to win the league as voted on by the coaches did just that, sweeping the league's regular season and tournament titles after compiling 11 of 15 first place ballots.
 
Meanwhile, the final in-season polls from the NABC and D2CSC this week saw Mines ranked seventh and ninth respectively. East Coast Conference champions Daemen remained the top team in the country in the coaches poll and is the last remaining unbeaten team in Division II heading into the next round of the postseason. Sunshine State Conference champs Nova Southeastern remain second while the Gulf South champions Alabama Huntsville remain in third. Dallas Baptist, this weekend's South Central regional host, jumped up from seventh to fourth this week after sweeping the Lone Star titles while Washburn dropped one spot to fifth following an early exit from the MIAA Tournament.
 
In the media poll this week, Nova Southeastern remained at #1 followed by Daemen. Alabama Huntsville traded places with Washburn for third and fourth as the Ichabods were tied for fourth this week with West Liberty.

RMAC TOURNAMENT RECAP
The Orediggers completed the RMAC Double for just the third time in program history last weekend, making a clean sweep of the RMAC Tournament to claim the silver cup for the third time in program history. Following a 79-74 win over Chadron State in the quarterfinals, Mines held off RMAC Freshman of the Year Cam Lowe and Black Hills State in the semifinals, advancing with a 77-64 win before blowing out Regis for the second time in three weeks in the title game 92-64.
 
Against the Yellow Jackets, Majok Deng led the way with 22 points and tied his season high with eight rebounds while Markus Pastorcic-Straun netted 19 and six off the bench. Cade Mankle went for nine while Juani Dassie added seven as well 10 players who checked in for Mines scored in the win.
 
Against the Rangers, the Orediggers came out strong and left zero doubt about the outcome. A 30-4 start to the night was too much for the Rangers to overcome as the closest that they came back to was 24 for the balance of the game. Deng dropped a game-high 23 on his way to Tournament Most Valuable Player honors while Mankle added 15. Riley Schroeder and Alex Romack each finished the night with 10 as 11 different players scored in the game. Following the game, Deng along with Mankle, Schroeder and Pastorcic-Straun were all named to the RMAC All-Tournament team for their performances during the week.
 
FOR ALL TIME
Currently in his 24th season leading the Orediggers, head coach Pryor Orser has seen a thing or two and is subsequently no stranger to milestone moments and record-setting success. On January 20 of last season, the legendary coach added another to his list of accomplishments, becoming the winningest coach in terms of conference wins in the history of the RMAC with 310 and counting. Just weeks later in February, Orser broke another conference record, this time for the most overall wins by a head coach in league history with a 74-56 win over Chadron State, giving him 442 for his career to again pass the great Bob Hofman who made a mark on RMAC history at Fort Lewis and Western Colorado over his 24 seasons between the two institutions. With seemingly no plans to hang it up anytime soon and enjoying another successful season this year, Orser has the potential to set a record that could stand for just as long, if not longer, than the previous mark as another point on an already remarkable resume in a coaching career matched by only a few.
 
HE'S GONNA NEED A BIGGER TROPHY CASE
After mopping up postseason awards from the RMAC last week, Majok Deng added another honor Friday, this time at the regional level as he was named South Central region Player of the Year by the D2CCA and earned his second All-Region honor from the organization in doing so.
 
Read more about Deng's latest honor here.
 
ALL-CONFERENCE ACCOLADES
Last Wednesday the RMAC announced its All-Conference teams and major award winners and the Orediggers were well-represented with five All-Conference selection and two superlative award winners. Head coach Pryor Orser was named Coach of the Year for the sixth time in his tenure after leading Mines to its first league title since 2019 while Majok Deng was named the league's Player of the Year.
 
Deng was selected to the All-RMAC First Team alongside fifth-year man Riley Schroeder who is in the midst of a career season. That duo both surpassed the 1,000-point mark in the careers in recent weeks, both reaching the milestone against Chadron State as Deng did it at home in February while Schroeder did it in Tuesday night's quarterfinal.
 
Markus Pastorcic-Straun's breakout sophomore season as one of the top sixth men in the RMAC was rewarded with Second Team All-RMAC honors while Alex Romack followed up his Freshman of the Year season last year with his first All-Conference honors, being named an Honorable Mention selection alongside Grant Pressly. Pressly emerged as one of the top passing point guards in the RMAC this season and flourished in his first season as a starter and is one of five players in the RMAC as of the time of writing with over 100 assists this season.
 
Read more about Mines' postseason honors here.
 
SMART GUYS
Wednesday the RMAC announced its academic honors for the 2024-25 season as seven members of the Colorado School of Mines men's basketball team were named to the league's Academic Honor Roll. Juani Dassie, Majok Deng, Dom Girish, Reagan Koch, Adam Krasovec, Silas McCurnin and Markus Pastorcic-Straun were all honored for their efforts in the classroom.
 
Read more about the nerds who can hoop here.
 
POSTSEASON PEDIGREE
One has to go back 17 seasons to find the last time the Orediggers failed to make a postseason appearance. Since the 2008-09 campaign. Mines has made the RMAC Tournament each of the last 16 years but claimed the title just twice in 2012 and most recently in 2017. In that span, the Orediggers have also won six league regular season crowns while all 13 of the programs NCAA Tournament appearances have come in this stretch as well. Under the tutelage of 24th-year head coach Pryor Orser, Mines has made it quite clear that the postseason is the expectation, not the goal and as they embark on the next leg of their season Tuesday, will look to add to their list of accomplishments this season.
 
BENCH MOB    
Mines' depth has been a massive part of their success this season with their bench being just as good, if not better than, the starting five at times. The Orediggers' reserves turned in five 50-point performances during the regular season and when looking at the national rankings, Mines is sixth nationally in bench points at 37.52 per game and is one of 12 teams in NCAA Division II that has gotten over 1,000 points from their reserves, tallying 1,102 points. Headlined by Markus Pastorcic-Straun, the nine players that come off the bench on a nightly basis will continue to play a pivotal role entering the postseason.
 
RMAC LEADERS
Mines had no shortage of players at or near the top of the RMAC statistical leaderboards this season as one would expect from a team that averages better than 80 points per night, won 24 regular season games and had five All-Conference honorees.
 
Majok Deng ranks fifth in the league in scoring at 15.2 PPG while Alex Romack is just outside the top 20 in rebounding at 4.8 per game. Deng is also in the top 15 in the RMAC in field goal percentage at .465 and led the conference in free throw shooting at .885 (108-122) while knocking down 58 three-pointers, good for ninth.
 
Grant Pressly's 118 assists are currently tied for second in the league and five back of the leader Kobe Sanders of Regis, while his assist/turnover ratio of 3.2 (118/37) is the best mark by a significant margin. Jonathan Moore's 22 blocks place him inside the top 10 this season while Pressly is also in the top 20 in steals with 34.
 
Collectively, Mines was second in scoring offense at 82.3 PPG and just one of two team to average better than 80 PPG for the season and also ranked second in scoring defense at 68.3 PPG to lead the RMAC in scoring margin at 14.0. The Orediggers shot an RMAC-best .502 from the floor this season, the only team to shoot better than 50% and were second in three-point percentage at .382 behind a league-best 285 triples. On the defensive side, Mines was fifth in field goal percentage at .434 and second in three-point percentage at .310. the Orediggers also led the RMAC in assists by over 100 with 577, were third in blocked shots with 105 and fourth in steals with 242.
 
NATIONAL STATS
The Orediggers can find themselves in several places among the national statistical leaders as team this season. Currently, Mines is eighth in the country in assists per game at 18.6 and sixth nationally in bench points at 37.52 PPG while their 14.0 scoring margin is good for seventh. The Orediggers are also 19th in assist/turnover ratio at 1.47, ninth in field goal percentage at 50.2% and 19th in three-point percentage at 38.2%.
 
1K CLUB
Mines can lay claim to something very teams nationally can and that's having not one but two active 1,000 points scorers on the roster. Majok Deng surpassed the milestone on February 15 at home against Chadron State in his sixth season of collegiate action between Pepperdine and Mines while Riley Schroeder moved to the north side of 1,000 in Tuesday night's semifinal against the Eagles. Those two have been at the forefront of the offense for the Orediggers this season and for them to continue their success in the postseason, the duo will need to continue to produce at the level they have all season.
 
GETTING THAT SILVER
Grant Pressly and Reagan Koch each completed their undergraduate degrees in May and collected their silver-plated diplomas as they walked across the stage and are back for more as both have begun graduate programs. Pressly, a fifth-year man out of Plano, Texas earned a Bachelor's degree in Business Engineering and Management Science while Koch needed just three years to graduate with a degree in in Mechanical Engineering. Both men are currently pursuing graduate degrees in Engineering and Technology Management.
 
CHECKING THE STATS
Majok Deng has been the leading man all season for Mines as he enters the NCAA Tournament scoring 15.2 PPG and shooting .465/.372/.885 on the season with 3.9 RPG, 28 steals and 20 assists. Riley Schroeder is next in scoring at 11.9 PPG and is shooting .532/.398/.719 this season with 3.6 RPG, 58 assists, 19 steals and is tied for second on the team with 15 blocks. Markus Pastorcic-Straun has had a breakout year off the bench, scoring 10.8 PPG on .536 shooting and has gone .763 from the stripe this season with 84 assists and 33 steals.
 
Alex Romack is tied with Schroeder when it comes to blocks and is scoring 8.9 per night on .593 shooting with a team-best 4.8 RPG along with 36 assists and 27 steals. Cade Mankle is scoring 8.1 PPG now as his average continues to climb and is shooting .464 from the floor and has found his stroke from three lately, raising his numbers from downtown to .378 while dishing out 80 assists and pocketing 33 steals. Reagan Koch continues to have a career year shooting the rock, going .500/.500/.821 and scoring 6.7 PPG with 56 assists and 21 steals.
 
Juani Dassie's three-point shooting is always a threat off the bench as he's shooting .421 from downtown with 48 of his 62 field goals this season being of the long-range variety on his way to 6.3 PPG. Adam Krasovec is scoring 5.6 PPG on .500 shooting with 37 assists, 13 steals and 10 blocks while Jonathan Moore's 22 blocks lead the team as he's shooting .619 and scoring 4.5 per game. Caleb Clark is always good for a timely three when needed and is shooting .370 from deep with 20 of 34 field goals coming from behind the arc to go with 27 assists while Grant Pressly is chasing the to spot in the RMAC in assists as he stands at 118 with 34 steals and is shooting a selecting .415 from the floor and .913 from the free throw line while hauling in 4.6 RPG.
 
SCOUTING WEST TEXAS A&M
The Buffs bowed out of the Lone Star Conference Tournament with a 76-67 overtime loss to Lubbock Christian on Saturday after they picked up a quarterfinal win over Midwestern State 70-57. WTAMU closed the regular season by winning four of their final five games, including a 95-90 double-overtime win over regional contender Eastern New Mexico and a four-point 89-85 win over St. Mary's (TX).
 
Three players are scoring north of 11 points per night for WTAMU headlined by First Team All-LSC selection Ahamed Mohammed at 19.3 PPG behind .413/.353/.759 shooting this season along with 4.9 RPG, 27 steals and a team-leading 74 assists. Noah Pagnotto, the only player to start all 30 games this season, follows scoring 13.8 PPG on .491 shooting from the field and leads the team with 6.1 RPG and has 36 assists, 22 steals and is second on the team with 14 blocks. LSC Freshman of the Year Narit Chotikavamic started 10 times in 30 games and scored 11.3 PPG for the season with 3.5 RPG and shot .406/.362/.835 in his debut season with 44 assists and 26 steals.
 
Amir McMillian may or may not play a role this weekend as he has been out since the start of February and in his 18 games played averaged 8.4 PPG with 43 assists and shot .361 from the field. LSC All-Freshman Team honoree Jailyn Sledge averages 7.6 points and 5.9 rebounds per game and leads the Buffs with 29 blocked shots while shooting .488 from the floor and .352 from three while Mackenzie Morgan nets 7.0 PPG and has posted a .424/.404/.809 line this season with 33 assists and 20 steals.
 
Isaac Ayoubi hasn't played since January and may or may not be active as he averaged 6.1 PPG on .417 shooting in 13 games. Another All-Freshman team selection Bob Greichen has started 19 times in 30 games this season, scoring 5.7 PPG with 3.8 RPG and shooting .432 from the floor while Nicholas Jett averaged 4.4 PPG in 30 games mostly off the bench with 18 assists and six steals.
 
For the season, the Buffs average 77.8 PPG and are +7.4 in scoring margin. They shoot .418/.330/.731 as a team compared to a .430/.310/.725 by their opponents. They average 37.9 RPG and are +14 in rebounding margin while averaging 11.3 assists per game. WTAMU does a good job limiting turnovers, committing just 10.7 per game and are +3.5 in TO margin, scoring close to 16 PPG of turnovers. Defensively they average nearly seven steals and three blocks per game.
 
SERIES HISTORY
Saturday marks the 13th all-time meeting between the Orediggers and the Buffs as Mines looks to improve on a 2-10 mark all-time in the series. The teams last met in the 2018 NCAA Tournament opening round in Canyon which saw West Texas A&M come away with a 79-65 win. Mines' two wins in the series both came in Golden in 2017 and 2003. The teams have only played each other three times this century as the first nine meetings in the series all came between 1936 and 1938.
 
LOOKING AHEAD
With a win, the Orediggers will advance to the regional semifinals against the winner of third-seeded Lubbock Christian and sixth-seeded St. Mary's (TX) on Sunday March 16. With a loss, Mines' season will come to an end and the offseason will begin.

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