Skyhawks center Matt Morris leaned his 6-foot-6, 235-pound frame on the front end of Cougars pride Brian Stamer.

The lob pass, inevitably, is thrown over the top.

Fort Lewis' Tim Crowell, waiting for it, leaves his man in the corner, swoops in underneath Stamer, takes the ball from his hands then starts the fast break.

"Our strategy, if you can call it that - strategery, that's a pretty big word for me," Skyhawks men's basketball coach Bob Hofman joked, then continued on the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference player of the year.

"Brian Stamer had the most dominating RMAC game I have ever seen (Friday night). He used a lot of energy on (Nebraska-Kearney), and I really thought he might be tired at the beginning of this one. So when they threw it over the top - we have a quick basketball team - it was our guards' responsibility to steal the pass in the post."

Crowell got the first one.

There were many more to come.

Stamer, fronted by Morris, Ryan Yates and Kyle Behrens, then chipped underneath by Crowell, Ryan Johnson and Ryan Jameson, struggled to just four points and one rebound in the first half.

Fort Lewis College, on the strength of its first half, defeated Colorado Christian University 79-73 on Saturday night at the Colorado State Fair Events Center in Pueblo to win the men's RMAC Shootout, a tournament championship to complement its regular-season championship.

"One of the things about this team, and one of the reasons we have been so successful, is our depth," said Johnson, along with Devon Manning the most successful tandem in FLC men's basketball history.

"Everyone can be successful with the basketball. Tim could go out and get 20; Devon, we all know what he can do; Jameson could go out and get 20. We just ride that person to the fullest."

Johnson scored a sneaky 17 points to lead five Skyhawks in double figures.

Jameson scored 16 points.

Trent Bowman, who scored a game-high 20 points in the semifinals, scored 14 points.

Crowell and Manning scored 11 each.

"The main thing is, no one on this team of 12 individuals is more important than anybody else," Hofman said.

Manning, the Skyhawks' leading scorer with 17.6 points per game, had another off night. He outjumped 6-foot-11 center Justin Neuhaus on the opening tip but fumbled the ball in their half-court offense, which accidentally created an open lane to the basket.

Manning lost, then regained possession, while Stamer gambled for the steal. He lost, and Manning turned toward the basket but left his layup too strong high off the glass.

Jordan Long's 3-point attempt was too strong on the other end of the floor.

Manning then worked his way to the free-throw line. He nursed his first free throw to the rim, but as it dropped, so did his nerves. His second free throw came easy, but Manning (7-for-22 in two Shootout games) still struggled for points.

Bowman, his replacement, didn't.

"What's real special, too, is he's a Durango native," Hofman said. "He had a terrific high school coach in Tim Fitzpatrick, and we're lucky enough to have him.

"Devon struggled a little bit, but Trent Bowman hit some big shots and some big free throws to pick him up."

Bowman checked into the game with a personal 9-1 run midway through the first half to give the Skyhawks a 21-11 lead. He finished the half with 12 points, two 3s, six rebounds - three offensive - in just seven minutes.

"We didn't come out ready to play in the first half," Colorado Christian coach David Daniels said.

Stamer, who had 40 points and 21 rebounds in a mild 10-point upset against 3-seed UNK on Friday in a Shootout semifinal, agreed with his coach's assessment. He said the Cougars' lack of big-game experience in his four years showed.

"We got lost in their game," Stamer said. "We've never been here before. It's not an excuse, that's just how it is.

"It was really physical. I wasn't mentally ready for it. They have some really good bigs inside, and I just wasn't ready for them mentally."

Fort Lewis, the top seed in the tournament, outscored No. 2 Colorado Christian 40-22 in the first half, then "as is my nature, I started coaching in the second half and watched the lead shrink," Hofman said.

"I need to just leave it up to these guys," he said, nodding toward Crowell and Johnson, "and just let them coach the game from the floor."

Stamer came out a different player in the second half. He scored 12 of the Cougars' first 15 points of the half, but more importantly injected life into an otherwise beaten team.

"My mindset was to get physical," he said. "Slow down our offense, get better shots, it was a combination of things, really."

The big lead got smaller and smaller, until Tyler House's 3-pointer from the corner with 3:10 to play in regulation made it a 10-point game.

Manning answered with a pair of free throws, on second- and third-chance points, and Jameson's layup reupped the Skyhawks' lead to 73-59.

House hit another 3 from the corner, one that bounced off the front of the rim, hit the square then rolled around the rim and found the net.

"Can you believe that shot?" Hofman said. "I don't think I've ever seen that before."

Brendan Puckett's first and only 3 of the game cut the Skyhawks' lead to single digits for the first time of the second half - 74-67 - with 30 seconds left.

Johnson answered with a pair of free throws.

Long's 3 made it a six-point game with 20 seconds left.

Bowman answered with a free throw.

Long's 3 made it a four-point game with five seconds left.

Jameson then capped the championship with a fast-break layup at the final buzzer.

"They're a determined team. They're a classy team," Hofman said of Colorado Christian. "I knew they had a run in them."

Bowman and Johnson, along with the Cougars' Stamer and Rory Morgan and UNK's Garrett Lever, made the all-tournament team.

Crowell, who wore the net around his neck during the postgame news conference, was the tournament MVP.

"It's a great feeling," the senior transfer from the University of Cincinnati said. "It's easy to play with great players around me, and I got (MVP) because of them."

"It's all about them," Johnson said. "We wouldn't be sitting here if it weren't for our teammates, and it's so much easier playing next to Crow. All I have to do is get open, and he is going to find me."

Fort Lewis (23-5) swept the RMAC championships - West Division championship, RMAC regular-season championship, RMAC Shootout championship - for the first time since the conference split into two divisions in 1996-97.

"The word we talk about a lot is legacy," said Daniels, the Colorado Christian coach. "Metro State, Nebraska-Kearney, Fort Lewis - they've got that, and we're trying to build toward that."

The legacy continues next weekend.

The NCAA selection committee will decide tonight the whos, whens and wheres of Fort Lewis' - both the men's and women's basketball teams - next opponents. The women will likely play Thursday and the men Friday in NCAA Division II regionals.

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