AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo.—An off night from the floor may have just knocked Colorado State right off the bubble for the NCAA tournament.
The Rams were held scoreless for nearly nine minutes in the second half, allowing the Air Force Falcons to cruise to a 74-57 win over the Rams on Saturday night.
This was a serious blow to a team attempting to make the NCAA tournament for the first time since the 2002-03 season.
With just two Mountain West games remaining—including one against No. 6 San Diego State—the Rams (18-10, 8-6) may have to make a deep run through the conference tournament in order to even be considered for a spot in the NCAA field.
“It’s frustrating,” said Andy Ogide, who provided the bulk of the Rams’ offense with a 27-point night, one away from tying his career high. “But we’re a team that’s never had it easy. We’ve got to go out there and try to make something happen.
“We had a good run early in the season, but we’ve kind of faltered toward the end.”
The Rams looked to be all but a lock to make the tournament about a week ago. But after three straight losses, it’s looking less likely, especially with league rivals No. 7 BYU, San Diego State and UNLV virtual certainties for the NCAA field.
“Our goal is a bit ambitious. We want to find a way to get in the NCAA tournament and win when we get there,” Rams coach Tim Miles said. “I don’t know what it’s going to take, because I’m not making the decisions. We’re going to go out and try to get a couple more wins next week and then see what we can do in the Mountain West tournament. … It’s hard to tell what’s going to be good enough to get there. We need quality wins.”
Michael Lyons scored 21 points and Evan Washington dished out eight assists as the Falcons (14-13, 5-9) snapped a four-game skid.
Washington also broke the school record by making his 107th start. But the senior was much more elated over the way the team finished, holding off the Rams’ charge in the second half.
“Now that’s a great feeling,” Washington said with a grin.
Up by as many as 13 points in the opening half, the Falcons’ lead began to shrink as the Rams used an 11-2 spurt early in the second half to climb back into the game.
Colorado State pulled to within 47-45 with just over 13 minutes remaining.
To wake the Falcons out of their funk, coach Jeff Reynolds called a quick timeout.
He didn’t scream or yell—at least at first—but still managed to get their attention.
“I simply slammed the clipboard down as hard as I could,” Reynolds said. “I said, ‘Here we go again.’ We talked about that today in shootaround, saying, ‘Hey, it’s time for us to step up. And we did.'”
Relying on their suffocating defense, the Falcons held the Rams without a point for nearly nine minutes.
In that span, Air Force quickly built the lead back up to 15 points with 5:26 remaining. The Falcons hit 12 of 16 free throws down the stretch to seal the win.
“We needed this bad. We’re just trying to build wins,” Lyons said. “Getting defensive stops was big in our minds today. We carried out the game plan.”
Colorado State struggled from behind the 3-point line, hitting just 5 of 29 shots. Most of the looks were rather uncontested, too.
The only offense the Rams could generate was getting the ball down low to Ogide. Their next highest scorer was Adam Nigon with eight.
“We couldn’t get our 3-point shooting going,” Miles lamented. “Just having no offensive balance hurt us.”
The 17 turnovers didn’t help, either.
“We’ve got to look ourselves in the mirror and see what type of team we are,” said Ogide, who finished with 10 rebounds. “We’ve been shooting well most of the year, but this last stretch of about 10 games, we just haven’t been able to knock them down. We’ve got to get better on defense.”
Mired in a recent slide, the Falcons changed things up Saturday by donning their gray uniforms for the first time this season.
The new look did wonders.
“That might be the biggest win for us of the year, because of where it comes,” Reynolds said. “Our team has improved every game—and worked extremely hard and been focused and brought energy. I can’t ask them to do anymore. Yet we weren’t able to show anything for it.
“This is the best this league’s ever been. We’ve got a good team, and we’ve won five league games. That’s not a knock against our players or our coaches, it’s how good this league is. I don’t think people still believe it. … We beat a good team.”
And possibly burst the Rams’ bubble in the process.
