By Paul Freelend
Regular season play for the Maverick men’s and women’s basketball teams will come to a close Saturday afternoon as Northern Colorado visits the Sapp Fieldhouse.
UNO’s women will be looking to avenge a 78-62 loss to the Bears back on Dec. 8, while the men will be going for the season sweep over UNC. Head coach Kevin McKenna’s troops already own one win over the Bears, a 94-82 victory in Greeley, Colo., that was one of only three home losses all season by the Bears.
UNC’s men enter the weekend locked into sixth place in the North Central Conference, sporting a 9-8 NCC record and a 14-11 record overall. North Dakota, South Dakota and St. Cloud State all sit above the Bears with a 10-6 conference mark and whichever club emerges from the weekend with the best record between them will most likely meet UNC in the conference tournament. UNO, on the other hand, will most likely face the seventh and final entrant into the NCC tournament. Augustana (6-10 NCC), Minnesota State-Mankato (5-11) and North Dakota State (4-12) are all possible first-round opponents for the Mavericks.
UNO’s women will not be playing in the NCC postseason tournament. The Mavericks are 10-18 overall, 6-11 in the conference, and can finish no higher than eighth place.
Tip-offs for the two games on Saturday will be earlier than normal. The women’s game will begin at 2 p.m., while the men are scheduled to tip off at 4 p.m.
UNO’s game against UNC will be the final game for senior guard Jen Mitchell. The 5-foot-8-inch senior, a native of Mankato, Minn., added to her long list of record-setting performances this season by becoming the Mavs’ all-time assist leader with 471 assists to date and setting the school record for assists in a season. Mitchell, who has 156 assists on the season with one final game to play, already holds UNO’s single-season and career three-point records.
