Rams come up empty in loss against Aggies again
In its most significant game of the season to date, the Colorado State men’s basketball team once again could not solve the riddle that is Utah State.
The Mountain West-leading Aggies dropped the Rams for the seventh straight time Tuesday night at Dee Glen Smith Spectrum in Logan, riding Neemias Queta and Brock Miller to an 8364 victory in the first edition of a two-game set.
“More than anything, I just think on the defensive end, we were very, very poor,” CSU coach Niko Medved said. “We were not close tonight on that end to give ourselves any chance to win a game like this. There definitely were no tricks. We just were not good enough in what we were doing here tonight.”
After trading buckets over the first nine minutes, the Rams (10-3, 7-2) found themselves trailing USU (12-3, 9-0 MW) by a mere two points in front of approximately 2,000 fans.
CSU appeared poised to battle star 7-footer Queta and coach Smith’s formidable group until the final buzzer. That’s when Queta began finding his rhythm.
Igniting a crucial 10-0 run, the junior converted an easy look in the paint before swatting sophomore David Roddy, knocking down a pair of free throws, cashing in another layup and corralling an offensive rebound all in about a two-minute span.
The prolific big man truly did it all during that sequence. And he truly did it all for the entire game — just as he’s done throughout the season.
“It’s really difficult. It’s hard to guard him one-on-one down there,” Medved said. “We did at times. But he does a great job of moving it out of the help.”
Behind a monstrous opening 20 minutes from the center, the Aggies extended their advantage to 44-29 by halftime. Overall, the Portuguese native constructed his seventh double-double of the campaign with 18 points, 12 rebounds and three blocks.
Beating the Rams at their own game, the Aggies also caught fire from distance and never cooled off, nailing 10-of-19 3-pointers –– most of which were a product of Miller, the team’s go-to shooter.
The guard –– who played a crucial role alongside Queta in USU pulling away for good to close the first half–– dropped 20 points off a season-most six triples.
On the other end, USU stifled the Rams’ stars from the jump. And though leading scorers Isaiah Stevens and Roddy combined for 25 points, plenty of those came in garbage time after the Aggies held the duo to three points combined in the first half.
Largely amounting to the scoring struggles, USU eliminated an essential facet of CSU’s game –– its lethal transition offense.
“A lot of it was we didn’t get enough stops, and we didn’t get it off the board enough,” Medved said. “I thought there were several times, too, where we got them to miss but we didn’t get a lot of clean rebounds.”