CHADRON, Neb. – After winning five consecutive home games, Chadron State men's basketball will put its winning mojo to the test when the Eagles hit the road to take on two of the top three teams in the RMAC standings. 

The Eagles (12-10, 8-6 RMAC) will face MSU Denver (16-6, 10-4 RMAC) on Thursday night at 8 p.m. before battling No. 8/10 Colorado School of Mines (19-3, 13-1 RMAC) on Saturday afternoon at 3 p.m.

This will be the first matchup between Chadron State and MSU Denver this season. The Eagles previously lost 76-61 to Mines, then ranked No. 15, in the Chicoine Center on January 9.

Both games will be streamed on the RMAC Network. Double Q Country and doubleqcountry.com will carry both games on 97.5 and 105.9 FM, with Dave Collins on the call. Fans can also follow along via live stats.

Looking Back
Chadron State ran up its win streak to three games with a 62-58 defeat of Colorado Christian and an 81-65 win over CSU Pueblo.

RECAPS: Colorado Christian | CSU Pueblo

Jalen Thomas scored a career-high 24 points to lead the Eagles over CCU before Chadron State led for the final 34 minutes of the game against CSU Pueblo. 

Player of the Week
Jalen Thomas was named the RMAC Offensive Player of the Week last Monday by the league office. 

STORY: Thomas Wins RMAC Offensive Player of the Week

Thomas averaged 19 points, 6.0 rebounds and 5.5 assists per game in Chadron State's two wins. He shot 9-for-18 from the field and 6-for-6 from the line in his career-high 24-point game against CCU, his fifth total 20-point game of the season.

Against CSU Pueblo, Thomas scored an efficient 14 points of 7 of 11 shooting from the field and added seven rebounds and seven assists. Dating back to the home win over Black Hills State on January 30, Thomas has finished with over seven points, rebounds and assists in two of CSC's last three games. 

The Amarillo, Texas native has started all 22 of Chadron State's games so far this season, the only player to do so. Thomas is averaging 12.5 points, 5.0 rebounds and 3.9 assists per game.

1K Club
Thomas's scoring explosion means that two members of the Chadron State basketball team have eclipsed 1,000 points in their career this season. 

Thomas reached 1,007 career points after the CSU Pueblo game last Saturday. The fifth-year senior recorded 698 in two seasons at Oklahoma Panhandle State (NAIA) before transferring to Division I Tarleton State, where he scored 35 points in two seasons. Thomas has recorded 274 points and counting this season with Chadron State, giving him 1,007 for his career.

Zy Wright was the first Eagle this season to reach the milestone. Wright scored 528 points at the junior college level with Gordon State before putting up 285 points in 2023-24 with Lone Star Conference member Texas-Permian Basin. 

Wright has recorded 295 points and counting this season with Chadron State, giving him 1,108 entering this weekend. Wright's 1,000^th career point came in the midst of his career-high 34-point game in an overtime loss to New Mexico Highlands earlier this year.

RMAC Update
With three weeks to go in the season, Chadron State is in the thick of the RMAC Tournament race with several challenging games ahead. 

Here is how the standings stack up: 
 

School	RMAC Record
*Colorado School of Mines	13-1
Regis	12-2
*MSU Denver	10-4
*Fort Lewis	9-5
Black Hills State	9-5
UCCS	8-6
Chadron State	8-6
Colorado Mesa	7-7
Colorado Christian	6-9
*Westminster	5-9
CSU Pueblo	5-10
*Adams State	4-10
*Western Colorado	4-10
South Dakota Mines	4-10
New Mexico Highlands	2-12

 
*= remaining CSC opponents

The top eight teams out of the 15-team conference will qualify for the RMAC Tournament. Seeds No. 1-No. 4 will host seeds No. 5-8 in home quarterfinals while the four semifinal teams will congregate at the highest remaining seed to play out the rest of the tournament.

The Eagles are seeking to qualify for the third consecutive season, having lost in the quarterfinal round as the No. 8 seed last year and as the No. 5 seed two years ago. 

Chadron State still must face three of the top four schools in the RMAC standings over the last three weeks, including two of the top three this weekend. 

Currently, the cutoff for the RMAC Tournament rests at ninth-place Colorado Christian, who CSC is two-and-a-half games ahead of with six to play. The Eagles' magic number is three (a combination of three wins or CCU/Westminster losses) to clinch a berth in the tournament.

Home/Road Splits
Chadron State has performed extremely well at home, with CSC's three-game winning streak all coming within the friendly confines of the Chicoine Center. The Eagles have won five straight home basketball games. 

This season, the Eagles are 8-3 at home (6-2 in home RMAC games), but just 3-6 away from home in 2024-25. With the next four games on the road, Chadron State will look to reverse their home/road split fortunes in order to solidify an RMAC Tournament spot.

Trey Tracker
Trey Ballard has done exactly that throughout the season for the Eagles, leading the team with 35 made three-pointers and ranking in the top 20 in the RMAC in three-pointers per game. 

Overall, Ballard has hit 35 of 94 attempts for a .372 shooting percentage. Among players with over 25 attempts from deep, Dalton Petersen leads the team with a .415 percentage (34-82), followed by Zy Wright at .377 (26-69). 

Julio Phipps has emerged lately as a three-point shooting option. The forward is only 7-for-12 on the season from three-point range, but seven of Phipps's 12 attempts on the season (and five of his makes) have come in CSC's last three games. 

Historic Wins
Chadron State has snapped a couple of long program losing streaks this season.

Against Colorado Mesa on January 25, the Eagles' 69-67 win broke a streak of CMU having won 13 straight games against the Eagles prior to Chadron State's breakthrough. The win is the first by Chadron State over Colorado Mesa since December 5, 2014. 

On January 16, CSC beat Adams State on the road 91-86, making history as the first win for the Eagles in Alamosa since 2009. 

Lights Out
Chadron State had historical offensive output on December 16 in their 107-50 win over Central Christian.  

The Eagles made 43 of 64 field goal attempts (.672) and were even better, percentage-wise, from three-point land, sinking 16 of 23 attempts for a .696 percentage, which is the best single-game percentage by an RMAC team this season. 

Chadron State's 16 made three-pointers are just two off the single-game school record of 18, set on November 21, 2021 against Haskell Indian Nations. That game also featured the single-game program record for assists (35). 

The 57-point margin of victory is the second highest in school history, trailing only a 103-45 CSC win over South Dakota Mines in November of 1998. Ironically, the Hardrockers had defeated Chadron State by 10 points just 11 days before that 58-point blowout. 

In the Polls
The RMAC has one "consensus" nationally ranked program, Colorado School of Mines, who the Eagles will see this week. The Orediggers are ranked No. 8 nationally in the NABC Coaches Poll and No. 10 in the D2CSC Media Poll. 

The D2CSC South Central regional rankings include five RMAC teams among the region's top 10. Colorado School of Mines is slotted as the No. 2 team in the region, while Regis is No. 6, MSU Denver is No. 7 and Fort Lewis is No. 9.

Lone Star Conference teams make up the other six slots in the poll, led by regional No. 1 Dallas Baptist (No. 5/5 national). The others are No. 3 Lubbock Christian, No. 4 St. Mary's, No. 5 Midwestern State, No. 8 Eastern New Mexico and No. 10 Texas-Permian Basin.

With a new coaching staff and predominantly new players, Chadron State men's basketball was picked 15^th in the preseason RMAC Coaches Poll for the 2024-25 campaign. 

Colorado School of Mines, who finished third in the league last season, were picked first for this year, receiving 11 of 15 first-place votes. MSU Denver received two first-place votes to come second, followed by Regis in third, which received one first-place vote. 

Black Hills State was fourth in the poll, while Colorado Mesa received the final first-place vote and finished fifth. The rest of the poll includes CSU Pueblo, UCCS and New Mexico Highlands in the final RMAC Tournament positions, followed by Fort Lewis, South Dakota Mines, Western Colorado, Westminster, Adams State, Colorado Christian, and the Eagles. 

Scouting the Roadrunners
Metropolitan State University of Denver (MSU Denver) is hoping to halt a slide. The Roadrunners are 16-6 overall and 10-4 in the RMAC standings, but all four of those conference losses have come in the team's last six games. 

The Roadrunners have fallen to Regis, Colorado School of Mines, Fort Lewis and Colorado Mesa in RMAC play. The Colorado Mesa game was an 89-85 double-overtime thriller last Thursday in what was the first match-up between new Mesa head coach Mike Dunlap and the MSU Denver program that Dunlap led to two national championships in the early 2000's. MSU Denver beat Western Colorado last Saturday.

This season, the Roadrunners are led by Brayden Carter, a senior forward on his third RMAC team after previously playing for Regis and Fort Lewis. Carter averages 15.0 points and eight rebounds per game, while fellow senior Caleb McGill averages 14.5 points and 7.6 boards per contest. Carter and McGill rank second and fourth, respectively, in rebounds per game in the RMAC. 

The Roadrunners score 79.4 points per game and allow 70.0 for a +9.4 margin that is the second-best in the RMAC. They are led by third-year head coach Dan Ficke, who came to MSU Denver from fellow DII school Belmont Abbey.

Scouting the Orediggers
Picked to win the RMAC in preseason, the Colorado School of Mines Orediggers are in position to do just that as they sit at 19-3 overall and 13-1 in RMAC play, with a one-game lead over second-place Regis, the only RMAC team to beat them this season, and a three-game lead over third-place MSU Denver. 

The Orediggers have won four straight since that loss to Regis, including two road wins last week over Western Colorado (68-56) and Westminster (60-57). The Orediggers are ranked No. 8 in the nation in the latest NABC Coaches Poll and No. 10 by the D2CSC Media Poll. Mines previously beat Chadron State 76-61 on January 9 earlier this season.

Mines is led by Pepperdine transfer Majok Deng, who ranks fifth in the conference in scoring at 16.1 points per game. An elite shooter, Deng leads the conference with an 88.9 free-throw percentage and ranks 11^th in field goal percentage (.467) and sixth in three-point percentage (.368). Riley Schroeder (11.6 points per game) and Markus Pastorcic-Straun (10.9) also average in double figures. 

Mines has the RMAC's second-ranked scoring offense (83.1 ppg) and scoring defense (allowing 69.0 ppg). Orediggers Head Coach Pryor Orser is in his 24^th season in charge and is the all-time RMAC leader in career wins. At Mines, Orser has won five RMAC regular-season championships, two RMAC tournament titles and two NCAA Elite Eight appearances.

Coach's Corner
Chadron State Head Coach Chris Francis is in his first season leading the Eagle men's basketball program. Francis comes to Chadron after serving as the head coach at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma (NAIA) since 2015. 

At USAO, Francis put together a career record of 176-94. Francis led the Drovers to five NAIA National Tourney appearances, a Sooner Athletic Conference Championship, and a Sooner Athletic Conference Tournament Championship, also taking USAO to an NAIA Elite Eight. Francis is a two-time Sooner Athletic Conference Coach of the Year, winning the award in 2017 and 2022. 

A former student-athlete, Francis was a starting guard and captain of the men's basketball team at Rogers State University. In 2011, he helped lead Rogers State to the NAIA Elite Eight and a 30-2 record. Following that season, Francis was named the Sooner Athletic Conference Defensive Player of the Year. He was recently inducted into the Rogers State Athletic Hall of Fame.