This Week in Rattlers Basketball
Game #1 • Road Game #1 • Colorado School of Mines • Friday, November 13 • 8 p.m. (CT)/7 p.m. (MT)
•    2026 marks the 11th straight season (minus the pandemic year of 2020) that St. Mary's and Colorado School of Mines Men's Basketball have met during the opening week of the season. 
•    The Orediggers have one Texas native on their team in freshman Holden Caltabiano, while the Rattlers do not have any Colorado players on their roster.
•    Two of the 12 meetings between the teams have come in the NCAA Tournament, with CSM winning both in 2014 and 2025.
•    Kellon Johnson for the Orediggers led the game a season ago with 19 points, though the Rattlers won 68-62 in San Antonio.
•    All three times the South Central Region Crossover has been in Golden, the Rattlers have gone 1-1 on the weekend.

Game #2 • Neutral Game #1 • MSU Denver • Saturday, November 14 • 6 p.m. (CT)/5 p.m. (MT)
•    This is the second-straight year the Rattler and MSU Denver Roadrunners are meeting after not playing since 2013.
•    MSU Denver has four players hailing from the state of Texas, including local product Hagen Hurst, a freshman from O'Connor HS.
•    Both teams have a player from Atlanta on their rosters in StMU junior Amare Banks (Collins Hill HS) and MSUD senior Blake Hadley (Pebblebrook HS).
•    Michael Grant had three offensive rebounds in four minutes against the Roadrunners a season ago, and scored four points.
•    Daniel Thomason from MSU Denver prepped at the same high school (Fruita Monument) as StMU SID Heather Kennedy.

Season 94: The St. Mary's University Men's Basketball team kicks off the 94th season of the sport at St. Mary's on Friday at Colorado School of Mines before facing MSU Denver on Saturday evening in Golden.

New Faces: The 2026-27 roster features 12 newcomers to the 18-man roster. There are five freshmen and seven transfers among the 12 newcomers, including senior transfer Jai Chisolm from DI Cal State Northridge and Liam Switzer from Fresno Pacific. The other five transfered from junior colleges.

Picked Sixth: Fresh off back-to-back NCAA Second Round appearances, St. Mary's was been selected to finish sixth in the Lone Star Conference Preseason Poll. The Rattlers collected 615 points in the vote and were the only team picked among the top eight to not receive a first-place vote. DBU totaled 841 points and collected 35 of the possible 51 first-place votes to be the favorite. Eastern New Mexico was voted second with six first-place nods and 751 points, while Lubbock Christian grabbed two first-place votes and 735 points for third. St. Edward's and Western New Mexico round out the top five.

Milestone Approaching: The next win for the St. Mary's Rattlers will mark the 1,450th in school history. StMU is 1,449-972 all-time entering the start of the 2026-27 campaign. The Rattlers are 813-299 at home, 489-526 on the road and 102-94 in neutral games through the first 92 years.

Call the 4's: Junior Lawyer Jones scored in double figures six times a year ago and has done so eight times in his collegiate career. Jones notched the 300th point of his career in the quarterfinals of the Lone Star Tournament against Western New Mexico where he collected a career-high 20 points and enters his third year with 317 points, 124 rebounds and 59 steals to his credit. Jones was named a Player to Watch by the Lone Star Conference.

Twenty Times Two: For the first time in the school's Division II era, the team won 20+ games in back-to-back seasons. The Rattlers finished 20-11 in 2024-25 and 22-10 in 2025-26. The last time teams won 20 or more in consecutive years was 1996-97 and 1997-98 when Bubba Meyer's father, Buddy, was the head coach.

Season Openers: The Rattlers are 3-0 in season openers under the direction of Head Coach Bubba Meyer, with all three wins coming against Regis and 51-42 all-time. This is the sixth time in school history the Rattlers have started the season against Colorado School of Mines, which will tie for the third-most common opponent. The Rattlers have played Texas State eight times, Schreiner seven, Texas A&M-Kingsville six, and Angelo State, Regis and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi five times to kick off the year.

Schedule Breakdown: St. Mary's has 15 home games, 12 road games and a lone neutral site game in the regular season for 2026-27. After starting with the first three games of the season away from Bill Greehey Arena, the Rattlers will host six of their next eight at home to close out the 2026 calendar year.

Hitting the Triple: St. Mary's has made at least one three-pointer in 222 consecutive games, dating back to Jan. 14, 2017. In 2025-26 the Rattlers averaged 5.6 made three-pointers per game and shot .347 from beyond the arc. Lawyer Jones, Michael Grant and Raken Vargas combined to make 29 of the team's 178 triples a season ago.

Making An Impact: Men's Basketball was thrilled to announce Marcos Valadez as its newest team member. The Rattlers signed Marcos through Team IMPACT at a special signing ceremony inside Bill Greehey Arena on Sept. 29. Marcos is a 16-year-old from San Antonio who is rarely without a smile on his face despite overwhelming medical difficulties. He loves music, art, and swimming, and loves to eat grilled cheese sandwiches and cheeseburgers.