Fort Collins – A run of 10 consecutive winning seasons could be in jeopardy at Colorado State if Wednesday’s 67-62 loss to Nevada-Las Vegas is any indication.
The Rams (7-8, 1-3 Mountain West Conference) are struggling with fundamentals: inbounding, shot-clock management and dealing with traps.
With its third consecutive loss, CSU fell into seventh place and has lost nine of its last 12 MWC games.
A few fans in a crowd of 1,189 at Moby Arena lost patience with first-year coach Jen Warden, calling for her to take control, particularly with inbounding the ball.
The Rebels (11-4, 3-1) simply doubled the ball-handler CSU wanted to inbound to and Rams forwards often didn’t move up to help.
At one point, Sara Hunter called time out to avoid a five-second call because she couldn’t throw it to a blanketed Vanessa Espinoza. After the time out, the situation continued and Hunter finally lobbed it in desperation, allowing UNLV to scoop it up.
It appeared to be an intermittent problem, though Warden didn’t see it that way.
“We obviously got that hammered out,” she said. “It’s a matter of everyone being on the same page. Those are turnovers we can’t give up, and once we were on the same page, we started to take advantage.”
“We worked on that at practice. That’s on us,” Espinoza said.
At one point, the Rams were whistled for a five-second call for failure to inbound. Sequoia Holmes then hit a turnaround jumper for a 48-39 UNLV lead.
Shot-clock mismanagement was another issue to the point where Rams’ fans began a countdown at 10 seconds, fearful that the players would let the 35-second shot expire. Several times, the Rams got off desperation shots as time ran out.
“Part of our philosophy was to make sure we made them play defense,” Warden said.
Melissa Dennett said it was by design. “We’re trying to slow down on offense and be patient,” she said.
The Rams also had difficulty when the Rebels trapped in their half-court offense.
“That is inexperience in a system,” Warden said. “That’s a first-year system. Usually you’ve worked on that three years; we’ve worked on it three days.”
Dennett scored a career-tying 28 points, surpassing 1,000 for her career, the 14th Rams player to do so.
Espinoza scored eight, and Thomas scored six.
UNLV (11-4, 3-1 MWC)
Hitchens 4-6 1-3 9, McCracken 0-3 1-2 1, Muller 6-9 1-2 13, Moore 7-12 8-8 26, Holmes 6-10 3-5 15, Simmons 0-2 0-0 0, B. Thomas 1-4 0-0 3, Hampton 0-1 0-0 0, Lee 0-1 0-0. Totals 24-48 14-20 67.
COLORADO STATE (7-8, 1-3 MWC)
Shepherd 3-6 0-0 6, Dennett 9-14 10-12 28, L. Thomas 2-7 2-2 6, Hunter 3-8 0-0 9, Espinoza 3-10 0-0 8, Kramer 0-1 0-0 0, Nohr 1-8 2-2 5, Moulton 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 21-55 14-16 62.
Halftime – CSU 33-29. 3-point goals – UNLV 5-14 ( Moore 4-8, B. Thomas 1-4, Holmes 0-2), CSU 6-20 (Hunter 3-7, Espinoza 2-7, Nohr 1-4, L. Thomas 0-1, Kramer 0-1). Fouled out – None. Rebounds – UNLV 25 (Muller 8), CSU 36 (Dennett 9). Assists – UNLV 14 (Holmes 7), CSU 13 (Espinoza 3, Dennett 3, Hunter 3). Total fouls – UNLV 15, CSU 17. A – 1,189.
