GREELEY, Colo.—Jabril Banks received an unexpected direction from his head coach.
“We were told to be selfish,” the Northern Colorado forward said of the game plan given to him by Tad Boyle. “Be selfish on the glass, go after every ball that goes up and go after every rebound.”
Banks had 17 points and nine rebounds as Northern Colorado defeated Colorado State for the first time in 20 years with a 72-59 victory Saturday night.
“We sent four guys to the boards all the time,” Banks said. “All we did was crash, crash, crash.”
Robert Palacios added 12 points. Jefferson Mason and Taylor Montgomery had 11 points each for Northern Colorado (3-3).
“There are two places you get selfish in basketball, rebounding and shooting free throws,” Boyle said. “You have to be selfish at both and especially aggressive when rebounding.”
Marcus Walker led Colorado State (4-3) with 17 points on 5-for-12, 3-point shooting. Willis Gardner had 16 points for the Rams, who had beaten Northern Colorado eight straight times before Saturday.
“You can draw up any play you want, but you can’t draw up a play to get points off offensive boards,” Colorado State coach Tim Miles said. “We gave up 20 points on offensive rebounds. The other problem that we had was our bench got outscored 20-5.”
The Rams led by as much as 51-47 after a layup by Gardner, and Gardner’s two free throws put them ahead 53-50 with 8:52 left in the game. But Will Figures of the Bears hit an uncontested 3-pointer to tie it at 53.
The game was tied for the last time when Stuart Creason’s put-back basket with 6:27 remaining pulled CSU even at 57-57, but Northern Colorado went on a 6-0 run, the final two coming on a layup by Mason with 4:36 left, to put the Bears ahead 63-57. Gardner scored the last points for the Rams with 3:30 remaining before the Rams missed five shots and went scoreless on their final seven possessions.
“The end was a cumulative effect of the offensive rebounds by the Bears,” Miles said. “Every time we gave up points off offensive rebounds you could see it took a piece of our hearts.”
Northern Colorado led 32-31 at the break in a half where there were eight ties and eight lead changes. Gardner’s 3-pointer with 8:36 left gave Colorado State a 24-21 lead, but Devon Beitzel’s breakaway layup capped a 6-0 run for the Bears to put them up 27-24.
Ronnie Aguilar tied the game at 28 with a free throw with 3:58 left. A 3-pointer by Montgomery and free throw by Figures in the final 1:32 provided Northern Colorado with its one-point edge.
“This was a big win for us,” Banks said. “It showed us that we can rebound with taller teams and taller players and win games doing it.”
