Tuesday night, much to his chagrin, Colorado State’s Niko Medved had a lot of topics to choose from, and he says he’s kind of a feel guy as to whether go calm or get fiery.
His Rams were discombobulated on both ends of the floor. Offensively, they had coughed up nine turnovers. While they shot well from deep, they somewhat fell in love with those shots, favoring those looks over the paint work he prefers. Defensively, Colorado State was giving up too many clean looks and Nevada’s Nick Davidson has 12 points at the break.
“I just told them we need to change our look a bit. Winning is hard,” he said after 79-71 decision over Nevada at Moby Arena. “I just thought we needed to kind of embrace the kind of game it was going to be. Some of the things that we emphasized, we didn’t do well enough. I think we played with a lot more edge and force in the second half.
“Again, these guys are mature, and they knew the deal. I asked them, ‘is that our best?’ They knew it wasn’t, and we came out and played much better than the second half.”
Exactly. Before Medved said anything, the players were already discussing it amongst themselves. They were the folks on the floor, the ones who could just as easily comprehend where they were lacking in effort and the parts of the game plan they weren’t following to the letter.
They understood the Wolf Pack, entering the night on a four-game win streak, was looking to steal a game on the road, as the Rams had done to them earlier in the season.
“We just have to keep going. They hit some tough shots, and I thought they did a really good job of getting inside and scoring,” Jalen Lake said. “We have to be tougher coming out the gate, and they did that. I thought we changed that around the second half and did a really good job.”
Good talk. Complete understanding.
The Rams were more disciplined on both ends of the floor, applying more pressure defensively – where a comeback has to start – and with a renewed purpose to get the ball inside. The second half started the way the first half ended, with Rashaan Mbemba scoring a traditional three-point play. As the half played out, CSU reversed the inside trend, turning the deficit into an advantage as Mbemba finished with xx points, with Clifford getting a good share of his game-best xx points inside.
Mbemba’s first 10-rebound game of his career produced his first career double-double before fouling out with 13.5 seconds remaining in the contest.
“It just worked out perfectly fine. We played the offense, obviously I was open at the end, and I made my shot,” Mbemba said. “It just boosted our group to jus t play harder, play more together and be sharper, especially on defense.”
Which is where all comebacks have to start. When the Rams started to turn a corner in the season, Medved said it was because they improved defensively. As they’ve won games to keep pace with the conference leaders, the wins have been dictated by defensive efficiency.
Just past the halfway point of the second stanza, the Rams went on a 15-2 run and built a 19-point lead. Nique Clifford became more active, finishing with 22 points and nine rebounds.
Not all was perfect, however.
Nevada, despite foul trouble from Kobe Sanders and Nick Davison (who would both eventually foul out), made a 12-2 push to tighten up the game, cutting the Rams’ lead down to single digits. What the Pack couldn’t do until it was too late was make it a two-possession game, as Colorado State, even at times of trouble, never refused to completely lose their grasp on the proceedings.
Not even in the first half. Lake, who had been a bit cool with his shooting of late, hit a trio of trey in the contest, the first time in eight games he’s made more than two. He also reached double figures in scoring (14 points) for the first time in five. He also had five assists, matching what Clifford did as the team produced 21, the seventh time they’ve had at least 20 in a game and the third consecutive outing doing so.
Kyan Evans, who had four assists, gave the Rams four in double digits as he closed with 11.
Those reversals – Lake finding his touch, Mbemba reaching a milestone, even Ethan Mortan knocking down his first 3 of the season late in a shot clock – add up to strong performances and successful seasons.
“It felt really good to see the ball go in early like that. I haven’t shot the ball as well in recent games,” Lake said. “To see the ball go through the net early just kind of helped my confidence, too.”
All they had to do was address the obvious.
“Our guys, they made the adjustment and got back to what we needed to do,” Medved said. “We were just a lot more aggressive attacking the rim.”
