Mines (9-10, 5-3 RMAC) at Regis (1-14, 0-9 RMAC) – Thursday, 7 p.m. – Denver, Colo. [Live Stats] [RMAC Network PPV]
Mines (9-10, 5-3 RMAC) vs. MSU Denver (6-11, 4-5) – Saturday, 3 p.m. – Golden, Colo. [Live Stats] [RMAC Network PPV] [Tickets]

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THE LOCAL GAUNTLET
The Colorado School of Mines men's basketball team continues their first run through the gauntlet of metro area schools this week as they return to the court in a split week with a trip to Regis Thursday night in a rematch of last season's RMAC Tournament title game before returning to Lockridge Arena Saturday for a brief home layover against MSU Denver.

LIVE COVERAGE
This week'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 483-242 overall and a mark of 340-160 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 10 RECAP
Mines hit the road for the first time in the near year last weekend with mixed results, dropping a 63-54 decision to CSU Pueblo Thursday before bouncing back with a 69-56 win over Colorado Christian. Thursday night, early-season shooting woes made their grim return as the Orediggers endured a nearly 11-minutes scoreless stretch in the first half before scoring just one field goals in the final six-plus minutes of the game. Despite the streaky night offensively, the final margin was just nine points thanks to the efforts of Alex Romack, who recorded another double-double with 23 points and 11 rebounds on 9-11 shooting. Saturday in Lakewood, Mines bounced back and nearly led wire-to-wire as it was the freshman Kasen Lehman leading the way with a season-high 27 points off the bench on an incredible 10-14 from the floor and 7-11 from downtown. Trent Minter flirted with both a double-double and triple-double, scoring 12 points with nine boards and seven assists while Romack continued to do Romack things with his 12th double-double of the season on 12 points with 12 boards despite being held scoreless in the second half.
 
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 eking out a pair of road wins over the weekend, Fort Lewis continues to stand alone atop the RMAC at 8-0 bolstered by a last-second win over Black Hills State Saturday. BHSU is tied for second at 6-2 alongside CSU Pueblo and Colorado Mesa. UCCS, Mines and South Dakota Mines are in a three-way tie for fifth at 5-3 ahead of Adams State and New Mexico Highlands are tied for eighth at 4-4. MSU Denver improved to 4-5 with their win Tuesday over Regis while Western Colorado is behind them at 3-5. Colorado Christian and Westminster follow at 2-6 ahead of 1-7 Chadron State while Regis brings up the rear at 0-9.
 
BURN THAT SHIRT (FOR NOW)
For the second time in as many weeks, Kasen Lehman lit up the scoring column on a Saturday as he dropped an eye-watering 27 points at Colorado Christian on 10-14 from the floor and 7-11 from long range. In the Castle Rock native's first four games at the collegiate level, all of which have come in the last two weeks, he's averaging an even 14.0 PPG on .538 shooting from the floor and .438 from deep with eight rebounds and five steals while being a steady presence on the floor. With new redshirt rules for NCAA Division II beginning in the 2025-26 season, Lehman could still maintain his redshirt status, but would only have a handful more games available before having to return to the bench full-time. However, with his performance since the start of the year, Lehman has seemingly launched himself into the conversation to be a rotation regular for the rest of the season, even if Markus Pastorcic-Straun is able to return from injury before season's end.
 
DOUBLE-DOUBLE MACHINE
Alex Romack made it 5-5 in 2026 when it comes to double-doubles, adding two more to his haul on the road at CSU Pueblo with 23 and 11 and at Colorado Christian with 12 and 12 to bring his season tally to 12. 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 20 times in his career, Romack will look to continue to cement his place as one of the top post players in school history with his prolific ability to score and clean up the glass.
 
BLOCK PARTY
Opposing teams have driven in the paint against the Orediggers at their own peril this season, and the numbers prove it. A team with significant length and athleticism inside defensively, Mines leads the RMAC with 80 blocked shots and are among the top teams in Division II in rejections. Leading the effort have been the big men Jonathan Moore and Alex Romack, with 25 and 19 blocks respectively. Moore now ranks second in the RMAC in rejections, with Romack close behind in fourth. Will Cordonnier and Derek Lamb have also led things defensively inside off the bench with nine and eight blocks respectively. In fact, 11 of the 14 Orediggers who have suited up this season have recorded at least one block, while nine have at least a pair to their credit.
 
FROM DOWNTOWN
Mines also finds themselves tops in the RMAC as a team with 164 field goals of the three-point variety and with good reason. Eight Orediggers have made 10 or more treys this season, lead by freshman Shelton Henton's 37. Jonathan Moore follows with 24 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, Kasen Lehman has 14 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 12 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. In 19 games, the Orediggers rank third in the RMAC with 13.3 offensive boards per game but lead the way at 253 total offensive rebounds on the season. In fact, just 10 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
In the absence of Markus Pastorcic-Straun, Alex Romack has emerged as the regular leader on offense for Mines and enters the week averaging nearly a double-double at 13.6 PPG and 9.2 RPG with 43 assists, 23 steals and 19 blocks while shooting .543 from the field. Jonathan Moore is behind him at 12.1 PPG on .449/.462/.902 shooting with 5.7 RPG, 21 assists and a team-leading 25 blocks. Kasen Lehman has provided a spark in the new year, averaging 14.0 PPG in four games and shooting .538 from the floor and .438 from three.
 
Shelton Henton is averaging 8.3 PPG and leads the team with 37 treys while shooting .388/.389/.840 with 30 dimes and 12 steals. Kellon Johnson averages 7.6 per night on .478 shooting with 17 three-pointers with 32 assists and 17 steals along with five blocks. Cooper Mroczek nets 5.1 PPG with 15 three-pointers and 17 assists, while Trent Minter leads the way with 50 assists and averages 4.0 PPG and 4.0 RPG. 18 of 26 field goal by Braydon Jacob this season have been of the three-point variety while Will Cordonnier and Derek Lamb have combined for 17 blocked shots.
 
On the year, the Orediggers are averaging 76.4 PPG and are +1.5 in scoring margin, shooting .440/.337/.690 compared to .444/.324/.701 by opponents. Mines averages 38.4 RPG and is +3.4 in rebounding margin while dishing out 16.1 APG. They turn the ball over 13.1 times per games and are -2.8 in TO margin while scoring 11.5 PPG off turnovers. Defensively, Mines averages 6.6 steals and 4.2 blocks per game.
 
SCOUTING REGIS
Year one under head coach Rex Walters has been a challenging one for the Rangers, who went from being RMAC runners-up a season ago to having just one win this year and an 0-7 record on the road. Following a 97-93 win over UT Dallas back on November 22, RU has dropped their last nine games including 93-74 and 82-57 decision at UCCS and CSU Pueblo last weekend before coming out on the short end of an 85-68 contest to MSU Denver Tuesday night.
 
After starting the season with 12 players, Regis had to overcome several personnel shortages in the fall, even going so far as to borrow a pair of players from the Rangers' baseball team in Jensen Planansky and Lance Mazur to get their through the semester break, while four newcomers have been added to the roster since the break to bring the total number of rostered players this season to 17.
 
Despite playing at times with just six players this season, Regis has shown a renewed spirit since the calendar flipped with the return of some key pieces to action. Freshman Luke Sodden, who missed the entire month of December, leads RU in scoring at 17.5 PPG and is second in rebounding at 5.3 per night while shooting .439/.418/.667 with 16 assists, seven steals and six blocks. Despite missing a month, he leads the team with 33 three-pointers and is second in total field goals with 58 in nine games. Junior Cooper Frith is second in scoring at 15.5 PPG and is shooting .427/.361/.851 with 32 assists and 15 steals. Sodden and Frith each went for 24 in last Thursday's loss to UCCS.
 
Gunner Walters, son of head coach Rex, is the lone Ranger to start all 15 games this season and is averaging 8.9 PPG on .444/.289/.667 shooting with a team-best 98 assists. Matt Yost is averaging 9.1 PPG and leads RU with 6.1 RPG while shooting .400 with 21 three-pointers and leads the team defensively with 21 steals along with seven blocks. Logan Peoples-Flores checks in averaging 7.1 PPG on .372 shooting with 16 three-pointers, while Dylan Forbod leads the team with nine blocks and scores 6.5 PPG.
 
On the season, Regis averages 65.3 PPG and is -22.5 in scoring margin. They have shot .430/.346/.725 on the season while opponents have shot .499/.419/.743. RU averages just 26.8 RPG and is -12.0 in rebounding margin while dishing out 13.1 assists per game. They turn the ball over 14.7 times per game and are -4.0 in TO margin while scoring 9.5 PPG off turnovers. Defensively, the Rangers averages 4.9 steals and 1.9 blocks per game.
 
SCOUTING MSU DENVER
Like the Orediggers, the Roadrunners have faced their share of challenges this season and enter this week looking to break into the top eight in the RMAC. MSUD posted an 85-68 win over Regis Tuesday and will head to Golden Saturday after being swept on the road last weekend by Colorado Christian and UCCS 79-70 and 98-85 following a home upset of then #11 Black Hills State 77-73.
 
Veteran Logan Threatt leads MSUD in scoring at 16.1 PPG along with 3.6 RPG to go with 42 assists and 17 steals while shooting .426/.313/.855 this season. Senior Quave Propst-Allison is second on the team in scoring at 15.5 PPG and leads the Roadrunners in field goals (89), three-pointers (37), assists (46) and steals (24) while shooting .473/.463/.787. JUCO transfer Garrett Falls checks in at 12.6 PPG on .463 shooting with 3.7 RPG, 30 assists and 13 steals.
 
Amare Bethel is scoring 8.7 PPG off the bench on .427 shooting with 19 three-pointers and has 11 steals as production falls off by nearly 4.0 PPG behind him. Caden Holmes and Adam Hackett average 6.0 and 5.9 PPG respectively and each have combined for nine blocks and 13 steals between them while averaging around 4.0 RPG each. Daniel Thomason (5.2 PPG) is second on the team with 19 steals while grad transfer Brian Unachukwu has been force defensively, leading the team with 5.9 RPG and blocking an RMAC-best 32 shots.
 
On the year, MSU Denver averages 77.7 PPG and is -5.1 in scoring margin. They have shot .458/.366/.727 this season compared to .457/.371/.713 by the opposition. They average 35.4 RPG and are nearly level in rebounding margin while dishing out 12.3 assists per game. The Roadrunners turn the ball over 17.2 times per game and are -3.6 in TO margin while scoring 14.2 PPG off turnovers. Defensively, they net 6.8 steals and 4.1 blocks per game.
 
SERIES HISTORY
Mines took two out of three from Regis last season, atoning for a 94-91 loss the RU fieldhouse in January with two blowout home wins by scores of 83-52 late in the regular season and 92-64 in the RMAC Tournament championship. All-time, Mines leads the series 73-71 and sports a mark of 27-39 on the road.
 
Against the Roadrunners, the Orediggers have won 13 straight meetings and lead the series 51-36. Mines swept the season series last year with a pair of close wins by scores of 70-66 in Golden and 66-61 in Denver. All-time as the road team, the Orediggers are 20-18.
 
LOOKING AHEAD
Mines closes the month of January on the road January 29 and 31 first at RMAC leader Fort Lewis before making the return trip to Alamosa against Adams State.
 
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.