Mines (7-9, 4-2 RMAC) at CSU Pueblo (10-4, 4-2 RMAC) – Thursday, 7:30 p.m. – Pueblo, Colo. [Live Stats] [RMAC Network PPV]
Mines (7-9, 4-2 RMAC) vs. Colorado Christian (6-8, 1-5 RMAC) – Saturday, 3 p.m. – Lakewood, Colo. [Live Stats] [RMAC Network PPV]

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ROAD TRIPPING
After running their winning streak to four games over the weekend at home, the Colorado School of Mines men's basketball team will take to the road for the first time in the new year this weekend, traveling south Thursday for a showdown with CSU Pueblo before returning to the Denver metro area Saturday with a trip to Lakewood against Colorado Christian.

LIVE COVERAGE
This weekend's games will be available for purchase on the RMAC Network. Free live stats will be available as well. Links for video and stats can be found on minesathletics.com.
 
RMAC NETWORK CHANGES
As was announced on June 30, this fall the RMAC Network is moving to a pay-per-view model for all events beginning with the 2025-26 season.
 
RMAC fans can purchase monthly and annual subscriptions that will provide them access to all regular-season, championship, and archived broadcasts on the RMAC Network. A monthly subscription costs $25, and an annual subscription costs $130. Single-game passes are available for $10, which grants access to a single game for 24 hours. For technical support questions, fans may submit a support ticket with Hudl Support or email the RMAC directly (rmac@rmacsports.org). For further support, fans can visit the RMAC Network Help page.

AT THE HELM
The 2025-26 season will be the 25th 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 482-241 overall and a mark of 339-159 in league play. Under Orser, Mines has won six RMAC regular-season championships and three RMAC Tournament titles and qualified for 14 NCAA Tournaments including two Elite Eight trips. 
 
IN THE POLLS
Mines was picked to finish second in the RMAC this season in the preseason coaches poll announced in late October. Black Hills State was the favorite to win while the top five behind Mines included Colorado Mesa, UCCS and Fort Lewis.
 
The latest national poll saw significant shakeups with Washburn taking over the top spot followed by Daemen. Southern Nazarene moved up to #3 followed by West Texas A&M and Nova Southeastern to round out the top five.

WEEK 9 RECAP
The Orediggers made it four in a row with a sweep of Chadron State and South Dakota Mines in their return to RMAC play in the new year by scores of 74-60 and 88-72. Thursday night against the Eagles was the Shelton Henton show as the freshman splashed nine three-pointers on his way to 27 points and just missed tying a 36-year-old school record for single-game three-pointers. Alex Romack recorded a double-double with 17 points and 11 boards while Jonathan Moore has 12 points with a career-high four blocks. Saturday against the Hardrockers saw freshman Kasen Lehman, playing in just his second career game after debuting Thursday, have a game to remember as he led the way with 20 points off the bench on 8-14 shooting with three steals. Moore went for 16 and nine as he just missed a double-double, while Henton followed up with 14 fueled by an 8-8 day from the free throw line. Trent Minter, who went 7/6/9 in points, rebounds and assists Thursday, recorded his first career double-double on a 13/4/10 day while Romack recorded another double-double with 12 and 10 for his 10th of the season.
 
HELLO THERE
A total of nine newcomers join the Orediggers this season as the defending champs look to reload for 2025-26. Get to know Jackson Brennan, Will Essman, Shelton Henton, Kellon Johnson, Kasen Lehman, Trent Minter, Cooper Mroczek, Ryan Pramenko and Gil Schayes here.
 
RMAC RESET
After MSU Denver upset Black Hills State Saturday and Fort Lewis outlasted Westminster in overtime, the Skyhawks find themselves alone atop the RMAC with a 6-0 record in league action followed by the Yellow Jackets at 5-1. A quartet of 4-2 teams follow in the order of CSU Pueblo, Colorado Mesa, South Dakota Mines and Colorado School of Mines hold down third through sixth in the standings. Adams State, UCCS, MSU Denver, Western Colorado and New Mexico Highlands are all 3-3 followed by Colorado Christian, Westminster and Chadron State at 1-5. Regis remains the only winless team in league play at 0-6.
 
BURN THAT SHIRT (FOR NOW)
With the loss of Markus Pastorcic-Straun for at least the next few weeks with injury, the Orediggers added a new face to the rotation last weekend and if they early returns are anything to go by, he might stay there. Castle Rock native Kasen Lehman debuted Thursday night against Chadron State and scored six points in 18 minutes off the bench with two rebounds, an assist and a steal in the first game of his career. Saturday against South Dakota Mines, he erupted for a game-high 20 points on 8-14 shooting including 4-10 from downtown with four rebounds, three steals and another assists in 27 minutes. Now given new NCAA regulations beginning with the 2025-26 seasons regarding first-year athletes and redshirt status, so long as Lehman doesn't appear in more than 30% of Mines' total games this season, he'll retain his redshirt. While a final decision may be a few weeks away, with 14 games left on the schedule Lehman has certainly made a strong opening statement to become a rotation regular in the second half the season.
 
GOOD COMPANY
Trent Minter recorded his first career double-double on Saturday against South Dakota Mines, scoring 13 points with 10 assists for the third double figures scoring outing of his debut season. He also made some history, becoming the first Oredigger in nearly a decade to record a points/assists version of a double-double. The last player to do that was the great Gokul Natesan, who did so in the 2017 NCAA Tournament against West Texas A&M with 13 and 12. Through in recent years, the likes of Grant Pressly and Sam Beskind posted double figure assist games, they did so at the tradeoff of their own offensive production and while Beskind recorded a handful of double-doubles in his two seasons, they were of the points/rebounds variety. Moving ahead, Minter will look to keep up his consistent production across the board, and can take pride in being in the same company as one of the best players in program history so early in his career.
 
DOUBLE-DOUBLE MACHINE
Thursday and Saturday against Chadron State and South Dakota Mines last weekend were double-doubles #9 and #10 for junior forward Alex Romack this season. Coming into the season, Romack had just eight double-doubles in his career with six of those coming in his RMAC Freshman of the Year campaign in the 2023-24 season. Looking back through the years, the most double-doubles by an individual in a season in the last 13 years came courtesy of Trevor Wages with 14 in the 2013-14 season. In fact since the year 2000, there have just been three seasons with 10 or more double-doubles by an Oredigger, as Wages recorded 12 in the 2012-13 season. And for more context as to what Romack has been doing this season, over the 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons, Mines had a combined 13 double-doubles as a team and in the two seasons before that, combined for just 10 total double-doubles. Now having accomplished the feat 18 times in his career, Romack will look to continue to cement his place as one of the top post players in school history.
 
TWIN TOWERS
The dynamic junior duo of Alex Romack and Jonathan Moore in the post has been something to appreciate this season for Mines fans. Though Moore hasn't played in enough games to qualify among league leaders, his 21 blocks would rank second in the league while Romack's 19 are in fact tied for second. Thanks in large part the efforts of those two, the Orediggers lead the RMAC with 73 blocks and would be just one of three teams with multiple players in the top 10 in the conference in denials. For Romack, he's up to 65 blocks in his career while Moore has got 45 and is pacing to set a new career high in that category by season's end.
 
FROM DOWNTOWN
Mines also finds themselves tops in the RMAC as a team with 148 field goals of the three-point variety and with good reason. Seven Orediggers have made 10 or more treys this season, lead by freshman Shelton Henton's 34. Jonathan Moore follows with 21 ahead of Braydon Jacob with 18 and Kellon Johnson with 17. Markus Pastorcic-Straun has 16 triples before his injury while Cooper Mroczek has 15 and Will Cordonnier has 11. If Mines wants to make some noise in the second half of the season in the RMAC, they'll need to keep up their three-point shooting prowess over the final 14 games of the season.
 
POUNDING THE OFFENSIVE GLASS
This season, no one in the RMAC has been better than the Orediggers on the offensive glass and is hasn't been close. While Mines and UCCS both average 14.1 offensive rebounds per game, the Orediggers have done that thanks to 239 offensive boards, a difference of 42 over the Mountain Lions. In fact, just nine teams nationally have more total offensive rebounds than Mines who ranks in the top 30 nationally on the offensive glass.
 
BUTKOVICH INDUCTED TO MINES HOF
The first All-American in program history, Joe Butkovich was inducted earlier this fall to the Harry D. Campbell Mines Hall of Fame. A prolific scorer and rebounder in the post, Butkovich was named an all-American as a senior in 1971-72, the Orediggers' first national honoree. Upon the conclusion of his career, Butkovich was Mines' all-time rebounding leader with 891 and third on Mines' all-time scoring list with 1,641 points. More than 50 years after graduating, he still owns Mines' career and season per-game rebounding records of 11.7 and 12.3 (1970-71) rebounds per game, respectively, and he also set the record (since broken) for season scoring average with 24.9 points per game in 1971-72; today he ranks third in that category. That senior season saw him lead the RMAC in scoring and rank among the NCAA and NAIA national leaders in both scoring and rebounding, and his top individual games were a 37-point night against Western New Mexico (the Mines single-game record at the time) and 20 rebounds against UMKC. 

Butkovich earned his degree in engineering from Mines in 1972. His post-collegiate basketball career included tryouts with the Denver Nuggets and Chicago Bulls, and he played professionally in France and Belgium before returning stateside to work as an engineer, spending much of his career dismantling chemical weapons across the United States. 
 
CHECKING THE STATS
With Markus Pastorcic-Straun out for the next few weeks with an injury, Jonathan Moore is the top active Oredigger in scoring this season at 13.3 PPG thanks to .468/.477/.902 shooting to go along with 6.0 RPG and a team-leading 21 blocked shots. Alex Romack, the lone Oredigger to start all 17 games this season, is second behind Moore at 13.1 PPG while leading the way with 8.9 RPG and shooting .516 with 38 assists and 19 blocks while his 22 steals are tops on the club. Shelton Henton is coming off a big weekend from three-point land and is now averaging 8.4 PPG on .395/.405/.826 shooting with 34 three-pointers and 25 assists along with 11 steals. Kellon Johnson is averaging 8.1 PPG on shooting .491 from the floor with 29 assists and 15 steals to go with five blocks.
 
Freshman Kasen Lehman will look to keep it going this weekend after averaging 13.0 PPG off the bench in his first two games of the season, connecting six times from three and adding four steals. Cooper Mroczek is averaging 5.6 PPG and has 16 dimes while shooting .422 from the floor while Braydon Jacob always looms as a three-point threat with 18 triples and as a facilitator with 27 assists. Trent Minter is coming off the first points-assists double-double in nearly 10 years and hauled in 11 boards Thursday as he's averaging 3.9 rebounds per game with 41 dimes and 12 steals. Will Cordonnier and Derek Lamb meanwhile each have eight blocks with the former also connecting 11 times from three-point land.
 
On the season, Mines is scoring 78.1 PPG and is +1.5 in scoring margin while shooting .440/.339/.689 compared to .448/.322/.707 by the opposition. One of the best rebounding teams in the RMAC, the Orediggers averages 39.1 RPG and are +3.9 in rebounding margin while continuing to remain elite in assists with 16.4 per night. They turn the ball over 13.2 times per game and are -2.7 in TO margin while scoring 12.0 PPG off turnovers. Defensively, Mines averages 6.9 steals and 4.3 blocks per game.
 
SCOUTING CSU PUEBLO
In their first year under head coach Zach Ruebesam, the ThunderWolves have nearly matched their win total from last season standing at 10-4 and enter Thursday night on a three-game winning streak. In the new year, they defeated New Mexico Highlands in non-conference action 70-57 before sweeping last weekend at UCCS and at home against Colorado Christian 82-73 and 70-49.
 
Sophomore Jordan Blair leads the team in scoring at 14.6 PPG and 7.0 RPG with 31 assists while shooting .483/.462/.682 this season to go with 10 steals and five blocks defensively. Jaden Kennis is second on the team in scoring at 13.2 PPG on .424/.320/.810 shooting with 5.9 RPG, 26 assists and 16 steals. JUCO transfer Dylan Sanders checks in at 9.6 PPG and a team-leading 19 steals while shooting .400 from the floor with 17 three-pointers, good for second on the team.
 
Ty Adam averages 7.2 PPG on .480 shooting while another JUCO product Kyren Allen has averaged 6.8 PPG on .711 shooting mostly off the bench to go along with 5.3 RPG, eight steals and six blocks. The latest South Dakota Mines player to transfer to The Pack, Mac Terry averages 6.4 PPG and leads the team with 51 assists while adding 11 steals and shooting .365 from the floor and .340 from three with 18 three-pointers. Freshman Bryce Riehl averages 5.1 PPG off the bench with 18 of his 23 field goals being of the three-point variety, while Sam Howery (brother of former Mines standout Josephine), has 14 steals. Another player to watch is Kaleb Mitchell, who leads CSUP with 11 blocks.
 
On the season, CSUP averages 74.1 PPG on .441/.347/.715 shooting while boasting the top scoring defense in the RMAC at just 64.3 PPG as they hold teams to .390/.292/.646 shooting. CSUP averages 37.7 PPG and 15.5 APG while turning it over 12.9 times per game and scoring 16.3 PPG off turnovers. Defensively, they averages 7.4 steals and 2.4 blocks per game.
 
SCOUTING COLORADO CHRISTIAN
The Cougars had a three-game winning streak snapped Saturday against the ThunderWolves 70-49. Prior to that, they had dispatched New Mexico Highlands in non-conference play 80-63 on the road before recording home wins over Northern New Mexico and UCCS 99-74 and 88-87. They'll host MSU Denver Thursday before taking on Mines Saturday.
 
Leading the way for the Cougars are the Bazil brothers, Pierce and Porter who transferred in from Division I Houston Christian. Pierce, who plays point guard, leads CCU in scoring at 17.1 PPG on .460/.365/.747 shooting and is also tops with 23 three-pointers, 36 assists and 12 steals. Porter, who plays in the post, averages 11.0 PPG and 4.5 RPG with a team-best 12 blocked shots while shooting .430/.366/.729 along with 10 steals. Joshua Reid joins the brothers averaging double figure scoring at 10.1 PPG on .505 shooting and is tops on the team in rebounding at 5.6 PPG. Mid-year transfer Rob Matos from Molloy has jumped right in and is averaging 7.7 PPG on .471 shooting.
 
Schafer Reichart averages 7.4 PPG and has 14 assists with 11 steals while his younger brother Andrew, a Western Colorado transfer, has mostly come off the bench to average 5.7 PPG and 4.2 RPG with 16 assists, six steals and five blocks. Lincoln Cantrall has been a sharpshooter from outside with 20 three-pointers, while Jimmy House and Zachary Reed have 11 and 10 three-pointers respectively. Ezra Guest is one to watch as well with 25 assists.
 
On the year, CCU averages 69.5 PPG and is -3.9 in scoring margin while shooting .439/.356/.734 compared to .459/.351/.710 shooting by opponents. They average 31.9 RPG and 12.2 APG while they turn the ball over 1.48 times per game and are -3.4 in TO margin. CCU scores 11.9 PPG off turnovers while defensively, they average 4.4 steals and 2.1 blocks per game.
 
SERIES HISTORY
Mines heads to Massari Arena Thursday riding an 11-game winning streak against the ThunderWolves but trails in the all-time series 33-36. The teams met twice last season with the Orediggers sweeping the season series 96-75 in Golden before having to work for a 76-71 win in Pueblo. The last loss in the series came in Golden in 2018 by a score of 83-79 while the loss in the Steel City came all the way back in 2009 by a score of 67-63. Since then, Mines has won 11 in a row on the road to improve to 15-22 as the away team.
 
Against Colorado Christian, the Orediggers are 40-14 and 19-7 when playing in Lakewood. The teams met just once last year with Mines posting an 85-64 win in Lockridge Arena. The last time Mines played CCU on the road, the Cougars recorded an 83-81 win in a game that had to be delayed from Friday to Monday as a result of a CCU play shattering a backboard on a dunk in pregame warmups. Prior to that, the Orediggers had won 17 in a row going back to 2013 including eight in a row in Lakewood.
 
LOOKING AHEAD
A split weekend against a pair of metro area foes is on deck as Mines will head to Regis Thursday January 22 before hosting MSU Denver Saturday January 24.
 
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.