No. 6 Rangers to face No. 3 Fort Lewis on Tuesday in RMAC Tournament quarterfinals

Feb 28 | By: David Wilson, Assistant AD-Communications

DENVER, Colo. — As the calendar flips to March, the Regis University men's basketball team looks to tip off its own Cinderella run, starting at 6 p.m. Tuesday when the Rangers open RMAC Tournament action on the road against Fort Lewis College.

Regis enters the tournament as the No. 6 seed and squares off against the No. 3 Skyhawks for the third time this winter. The two teams split the season series, with the Rangers grinding out an 81-71 road win over Fort Lewis on Dec. 17 and FLC rallying for an 81-75 win in Denver back on Feb. 12. Fort Lewis leads the all-time series, 44-36, while the Rangers have won five of the last seven matchups dating back to March 3, 2018.

"We've had two really close battles and two really good games with Fort Lewis this year. They are one of the hotter teams in the conference right now and playing really confident basketball," said Regis head men's basketball coach, Brady Bergeson. "This is going to be an absolute battle for us to go into their home gym, which has always been one of the harder places to play, and put our product out on the floor. But our guys are hungry and we're looking forward to the challenge."

The Rangers will look to lean on their defense, which is coming off of a 20-steal performance in last Saturday's 80-67 victory against Adams State to close out the regular season. Junior guard Will Cranston-Lown spearheaded the effort with a career-high seven steals; the second highest single-game performance in program history.

Fort Lewis enters Tuesday's tilt leading the RMAC in scoring at 84.1 points per game and averaging the fewest turnovers per contest (11.0). However, FLC struggled against the Rangers' pressure in the first Durango meeting as RU held the high-scoring Skyhawks to 71 points on 42% shooting and forced 18 turnovers.

Junior forward Kevin Ebiriekwe led all Rangers with 21 points and seven rebounds in the victory, while graduate student Brian Dawson and Cranston-Lown added 19 points and 13 points, respectively.

The Rangers will look to duplicate that effort Tuesday and punch their ticket to Friday's semi-final round, which will be hosted by the highest remaining seed in the RMAC Tournament following the quarterfinals.

"My feel on the guys is that they are refreshed and energized," Bergeson said. "I think Saturday's win really helped us and we're feeling good about ourselves. I think we're hungry and I expect us to have a lot of energy (Tuesday). Our guys are in the right state of mind."

RMAC QUARTERFINAL INFORMATION
When: 6:00 P.M. Tuesday, March 1
Where: Whalen Gymnasium | Durango, CO.
Tickets: https://skyhawks.primoticketing.com/
Live Stats: https://goskyhawks.com/sidearmstats/mbball/summary
Live Video: https://rmacnetwork.com/regisrangers/

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