Will Petersen – KFKA
A cold night in Fort Collins leaked into Colorado State’s start to their bout with Mountain West foe Nevada after turning the ball over three times in the first five minutes, fueling the frustration amongst the Rams early in Tuesday night’s game. Nevada came into Fort Collins with a four-game win streak and jumped on the Rams early shooting 5-7 from the field and 2-2 from three to start the night. While CSU had trouble taking care of the ball for the majority of this game, finishing with nine turnovers in the first half and 16 total, the Rams kept their heads down. Jalen Lake hit back-to-back threes early in the game to give the Rams some momentum in their three-point shooting but had trouble dealing with 6’10” Junior Nick Davidson in the paint who finished the first half with 12 points on 5-10 shooting, 1-4 from three. While they shot the three well in the first half the rest of the Rams game was lacking in nearly all departments which resulted in Nevada leading 36-33 at the halftime break.
Turnovers and lack of defense caused Colorado State Head Coach Niko Medved to emphasize to his team that they need to change their approach, stating, “I just told them we need to change our look a bit. Winning is hard,” Medved said after beating Nevada 79-71. “I just thought we needed to kind of embrace the kind of game it was going to be. I think we played with a lot more edge and force in the second half.”
Most times tough love is not easy to hear but Medved knew he needed to light a spark under his team. The spark was simple with Medved stating, “I asked them, ‘is that our best?’ They knew it wasn’t, and we came out and played much better than the second half.”
The Rams certainly listened to Medved’s words after grabbing their first lead of the game (38-36) just a minute and forty-five seconds into the second half after locking in on defense as well as looking to get to the rim and not forcing threes. Jalen Lake’s response in the post game press conference was a prime example of how the Rams heard their coach’s halftime message stating, “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.” Lake then added, “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.”
The shift in the Rams approach to the second half paid dividends as CSU at one point was outsourcing Nevada 31 to 9 all behind none other than star player Nique Clifford. Clifford struggled in the first half finishing with six points on 1-4 shooting, 1-1 from three with five rebounds and two assists. Clifford had trouble letting the offense come to him as the Wolf Pack’s defensive plan was primarily focused on him, but this did not let Nique get deterred. Nique seemed to change his own offensive look after slamming down a signature one-handed dunk in the second half that led to fifth year having 16 second half points, finishing with 22 points, nine rebounds and five assists.
While Clifford had another game that many have grown accustomed to due to talent and consistency, several other members of the Rams made major impacts that helped CSU win their eleventh Mountain West game of the season. Ethan Morton hit his first three of the season for the Rams as the shot clock expired and Jalen Lake added a somewhat quiet 14 points off 5-9 shooting, 3-7 from three in an offensive effort that helped keep the Rams alive when Clifford
needed some time to find his groove. The headline that should be gracing every local paper on Wednesday morning is Rashaan Mbemba recorded his first career double-double tonight with 12 points and 10 rebounds. This is also Mbemba’s first career game with ten rebounds.
Although CSU came out slow defensively as well as taking care of the ball, the Rams finished with four players in double figures and won the rebounding margin 34-15 in addition to holding Nevada’s second leading scorer, Kobe Sanders, to only 7 points on 2-5 shooting. While the game did not start pretty it sure ended that way for a CSU squad that is now 11-4 in the Mountain West, and 17-6 overall. The Rams now head to Sin City for a date with UNLV on Saturday at 8 PM, a team the Rams beat by 22 (84-62) in Moby in January.
