LAS VEGAS — In a month designated to celebrate 20-game winners, one Mountain West Conference team with 20 losses is guaranteed at least two games in the MWC Tournament.
The men’s tournament play-in system sends the winner of today’s game between Air Force (9-20) and Colorado State (9-21) into Thursday’s quarterfinals at the Thomas & Mack Center against No. 1-seeded Brigham Young.
Air Force went 0-16 in the MWC this season this year, a feeling CSU players know all too well from last year.
So the Rams weren’t looking past Air Force when they arrived Tuesday. They just know BYU (24-6) awaits the winner. CSU senior guards Marcus Walker and Willis Gardner want to extend their stay as long as possible.
“We’re here to spoil everyone else’s dreams,” said Walker, who is averaging a team-high 17 points.
CSU coach Tim Miles can relate to the Falcons’ desire to stop their long losing streak. The Rams went 0-16 in the MWC in Miles’ first season before defeating Wyoming 68-63 in the 2008 tournament’s play-in game.
“It’s unfortunate to go through that 0-16 kind of run. Look what they did at UNLV and at BYU (losing by a combined eight points),” Miles said of the Falcons, who have lost 17 consecutive games. “They’ve competed really well.”
Already AFA seniors Andrew Henke and Matt Holland scorched CSU for career highs of 29 and 25 points, respectively.
Neither team showed any signs of giving up in the last weeks despite the looming ignominy of the play-in game. AFA coach Jeff Reynolds looks at how close CSU came in its final three home games, falling to two of the MWC’s tri-champs in a combined three overtimes along with a last minute loss to Wyoming. Miles marveled at how well the Falcons played at UNLV and BYU.
In the previous five winning seasons at AFA, the Falcons failed to win a game in postseason except for the 2007 NIT run. The demands at the academy had been cited in the past for those early March exits. Recognizing that history, Reynolds said “We’ve tried hard to watch that this year. We’ve cut practice back some. We’ve played with more people this year. In the past we went with six or seven guys, this year it’s 9-10 in double figure minutes.”
Natalie Meisler: 303-954-1295 or nmeisler@denverpost.com
