CSU losing streak now at five
Utah St. hits 18 3-pointers to thwart Rams' shooting effort
FORT COLLINS >> Colorado State was even more shorthanded than usual Saturday evening against Utah State and that did nothing to help the Rams get their season back on track.
Down two more players this weekend — Jalen Lake with a concussion and Tavi Jackson with an illness, leaving the team with only seven available scholarship players — the Rams couldn’t keep up with the hot-shooting Aggies in the second half and eventually lost, 88-79, at Moby Arena.
With the loss, the Rams dropped to 10-14 overall and 2-9 in the Mountain West Conference. They have lost five games in a row and 10 of their last 12.
“Obviously, you play every game to win,” CSU head coach Niko Medved said. “That was our mindset. You try to give yourself an opportunity. We knew going into it we were going to be a little shorthanded, we’d have some really difficult matchups that way.”
CSU only trailed by one at halftime, but that small deficit grew into a large one in a matter of minutes at the start of the second half as the Aggies showed why they are one of the best 3-point shooting teams in the country.
After making 6-of-18 from long range in the first half, the Aggies lit up the Rams from beyond the arc even more in the second, making 12-of-21 3-pointers. Despite shooting 70.4% from the field in the final 20 minutes itself, CSU somehow could not keep up.
The Aggies went ahead by as many as 14 points in the second half, taking a 74-60 lead with 6:18 remaining.
Behind some hot shooting from Isaiah Stevens and John Tonje,
the Rams, as they have a few times during their ongoing losing streak, made a late run.
A deep 3 by Tonje cut the Utah State lead to six points at 83-77 with 53 seconds remaining. That would be as close as the Rams would get, with free throws aiding the Aggies’ final-minute edge.
Stevens led CSU with 25 points, 21 coming in the second half. Tonje finished with 20 and James Moors added 13.
The Rams shot 55% from the field in the game but were only 3-of-17 from 3-point range. Utah State shot 51%, but 18 of their 29 field goals were 3-pointers.
Many times, the Rams felt like they were trading 2s for 3s and couldn’t keep up with the Aggies’ pace.
“Most of the guys from their team shot a high percentage from there,” Stevens said. “Obviously, wish we would have ran them off the 3 a little bit better. Had good vision on a lot of these guys on the run-around, but they took them and made them tonight.”
Utah State opened the game on fire from long range. The Aggies made four in the opening minutes of the game to take a 13-2 lead.
It was 13-4 at the first media timeout and when the teams came back out on the court, it was CSU with a game-changing run. The Rams scored 14 straight points over the next four minutes to go ahead 18-13.
“I thought our guys did a good job responding after we got down 13-2,” Medved said. “They came back. They fought. They had an oppor- tunity to take the lead. To be honest, I thought it was probably a little unfortunate we didn’t find a way to stretch it out a little bit. I thought we had some opportunities offensively we didn’t cash in on when we kind of had them on their heels a little bit.”
From there the teams traded the lead a few times with neither team taking more than at three-point lead before the Aggies got the last points of the first half on a dunk by Trevin Dorius.
Tonje led the Rams with 13 first-half points as the Rams shot 41.9% from the field and were only 1-of-9 from behind the 3-point line.
“I thought the guys, over the last few weeks, and I get it, it’s not going the way they want,” Medved said. “It’s spiraled into a place nobody saw coming for a variety of reasons. We’ve got to pick ourselves off the mat. I thought I saw a lot better spirit out of our ballclub here tonight. Hopefully that is something to build on.”
The Rams will be back in action Tuesday at Air Force.