A year after the Colorado State men’s basketball team was knocked out of the Mountain West Conference Tournament quarterfinals by the regular-season league champion, the Rams repeated the feat Thursday, losing 64-52 to San Diego State at the Pepsi Center.
But coach Dale Layer insisted the Rams’ program improved in the past year.
Perhaps it did. The Rams lost to Utah a year ago by 13 points.
But Layer was referring to his team’s 16-15 overall record, after an 11-17 mark a year ago.
“If you compare (CSU) to 365 days ago, you would say we made a lot of improvements,” Layer said. “Is that enough? No. Are we disappointed? Absolutely. Could we have done better? Should we have done better? Certainly.”
Colorado State raised hopes with an 11-2 mark in nonconference play but collapsed in the Mountain West to finish eighth.
The Rams’ weaknesses were exposed Thursday by Aztecs forward Marcus Slaughter, whose 19 rebounds set a conference tournament record.
Although CSU played its best defense of its three losses to the Aztecs, and held MWC player of the year Brandon Heath to 16 points, the Rams never got closer than six points in the second half.
Michael Harrison’s dunk for CSU made it 50-44 with 10:27 left, at which point San Diego State called a timeout. The Aztecs responded with a 9-0 run and cruised the rest of the way.
“We talked about if we don’t score another point in this game, we can still win if we come down and get stops and bring closure to it with defense,” Heath said of the critical timeout.
San Diego State (22-8) will meet No. 4 seed UNLV, a 65-64 winner over New Mexico, today at 7 p.m. in the first semifinal at the Pepsi Center.
Aztecs coach Steve Fisher wasn’t quite as confident as his players during the second-half timeout.
“There was no question we were rocked back on our heels when they cut it to six,” he said.
The difference, Fisher added, was his team’s ability to control the boards.
“We were able to find a way to get the ball,” Fisher said. “Slaughter has a knack of rebounding the ball. And he did a great job.”
Eight of Slaughter’s boards came on the offensive end, and San Diego State put up 68 shots, 23 more than CSU. The Rams came into the game undermanned on the inside when the team learned 15 minutes before tipoff that backup center Stuart Creason was out after reinjuring a foot. That removed one obstacle for Slaughter on the boards. The usual early foul trouble for CSU starter Jason Smith removed another.
Harrison took advantage of double- and triple-teaming on Smith to lead all scorers with 24 points. He also had a tournament-record six blocked shots but he had very little support. Freddy Robinson expended his energy on defense and the Rams, as usual, had no consistent outside shooting threat. Smith struggled to score 13 points and had eight turnovers.
The loss exposed CSU’s season-long shortcomings.
Only Robinson and Harrison markedly raised their games in the final month. And Smith, save for one NBA-caliber blocked shot in the first half, appeared tired once again.
“It’s the wear and tear of the season,” Smith said. “We played hard. We played our hearts out. We didn’t come out on top.”
And for the fifth time in the past six games, CSU was assessed a technical, when Layer went bonkers over a charging foul against Smith.
Natalie Meisler can be reached at 303-820-1295 or nmeisler@denverpost.com.
