Immediately after a 36-point loss at No. 14 Metro State, Bob Hofman knew his team’s season would go one of two ways. Which direction remains to be seen.
The Fort Lewis College men’s basketball team will look to respond from the tough road loss last Saturday in a pair of big conference home games Friday and Saturday against Colorado Christian and No. 9 Colorado Mines, respectively.
The Colorado Christian Cougars are a team on the rise with dangerous shooters, while Colorado Mines suffered its first loss of the season Saturday after an impressive 14-0 start.
It’s a tough task for the Skyhawks (13-4, 8-3 Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference) to tackle coming off an emotionally deflating loss, and Hofman is ready to see how his team responds.
“It was a hard week of practice. I think it remains to be seen, but adversity reveals character, it doesn’t build it,” the FLC head coach said. “For us, losing like that in a big game was very upsetting.”
Hofman knows as well as anyone that his team can’t look past the Cougars to the Orediggers (14-1, 10-1 RMAC) on Saturday night. The Cougars (9-8, 6-5 RMAC) are one of the better shooting teams in the conference and only lost by two points against Metro State. Colorado Christian also has a big 84-67 win against CSU-Pueblo on its résumé from last weekend, and they’ve hung tough in every loss.
“One of the best shooting teams in the nation you can argue is Colorado Christian, and they all shoots 3s,” Hofman said. “Their entire starting five is a really difficult matchup for us.”
The Cougars are led by Michael Brown, who is eighth in all of Division II in made 3-pointers with 56. His 49.6-percent shooting from 3 is good for 11th in the nation.
The Cougars have been much improved under head coach Kevin Lubbers, who is in his fourth year in Lakewood. He has turned a bottom-of-the-conference team into an 18-game winner a season ago, when the Cougars matched a school record with 13 conference wins.
Outside of Metro State, no team in the RMAC has had as much success in recent years as Colorado Mines. The Orediggers bring three of the best guards in the conference into Whalen Gymnasium on Saturday. Brian Muller and Trevor Ritchie are fifth-year seniors who are first-team all-conference selections, and guard/forward Gokul Natesan returned after earning the RMAC Freshman of the Year award a year ago.
“The college game is so guard-oriented, and they’ve got three that are just tremendous,” Hofman said. “(Natesan) is as good defensively as anyone in the conference.”
Muller leads the Orediggers with 14.8 points per game, while Natesan has added 13.8. Ritchie shoots 60 percent from the field,
Caleb Waitsman is the third-best rebounder in the league with 8.3 per game. He has scored 12.8 points per game while shooting 58.5 percent from the floor.
With all the strong guard play, Mines head coach Pryor Orser likes the matchup, even with his team having to face All-American Alex Herrera, who is in the top 10 in the nation in six statistical categories.
“Fort Lewis is a bit better matchup,” Orser said in a phone interview with The Durango Herald on Tuesday. “We don’t match with Herrera, but it’s better for us.”
Herrera, who averages a double-double with 23.1 points and 10.5 rebounds to go along with 3.9 blocked shots per game, will have a big load to carry against the Cougars and Orediggers, but Hofman said it has to be a collective effort to bound back from last weekend.
“We’re working hard to stay positive as a group,” Hofman said. “That’s really important. We haven’t hit anywhere close to our stride we have to be to be competitive in this league.
“These games are big for us, and it will be nice, because our last four home games have felt like road games with the students out of town. We need to have a good atmosphere for our home court this weekend.”
jlivingston@durangoherald.com
