FORT COLLINS — Defense and rebounding.
Those are what the Colorado State basketball program prides itself on more than anything else — so much so, it’s written on the wall outside the team’s locker room.
At times this season, though, the Rams have been deficient at one or both areas. But on Saturday, they carried CSU to a 76-67 win over visiting Nevada before 4,018 at Moby Arena.
The Rams won the rebounding battle 53-37 thanks in no small part to Emmanuel Omogbo’s 19 and held the Wolf Pack to 38.7 percent shooting from the field to help erase a nine-point second-half deficit.
Omobo, who a few weeks ago lost four family members in a house fire, was everywhere in the paint on both ends of the court. The junior college transfer had 11 of his team’s 20 offensive rebounds, including eight in the second half.
“I’m just playing for my family right now and my teammates. That’s all I’m really thinking about, just whatever I have to do for this team to win,” he said.
In starting the second half of their Mountain West schedule, the Rams improved to 5-5 in league play and 13-10 overall. Nevada, which was held to 31.4 percent shooting in the second half, fell to 13-9 and 5-5.
CSU senior guard Antwan Scott went 5-for-9 from 3-point range and led all players with 23 points. John Gillon came off the bench, made 8-of-10 free throws and scored 20 points for the Rams, and Joe De Ciman added 11 and Tiel Daniels 10. Guard Eric Cooper Jr. came off the bench to lead Nevada with 14 points.
The Rams trailed for most of the contest — Nevada led for 30 minutes, 46 seconds — but CSU ended the game on a 17-5 run the final five minutes to secure one of its most impressive wins of the season. Gillon gave his team the lead for good with a layup with 3:17 left, and a few possessions later, De Ciman came up with a steal and a transition dunk to help put it away.
For the first time this conference season, the Rams held an opponent to below its season-long shooting percentage. It looked like that trend would continue as the Wolf Pack shot 48.1 percent in the first half, but CSU locked down defensively in crunchtime, holding Nevada to just 2-of-10 from the field in the game’s final five minutes.
“I think the second half, we had fun getting stops,” Scott said. “The first half we were just like, ‘OK, we can get stops.’ But the second half, I saw a couple of my teammates high-fiving, jumping up and down after getting stops. We wanted to get stops. It’s something we haven’t been doing in the past.”
The Rams’ defensive effort allowed the team to overcome a rough day offensively. In fact, CSU won for the first time this season while shooting less than 40 percent: 23-for-67, 34.3 percent, its third-worst shooting game of the season.
Despite his team ranking last in the MW in scoring defense, CSU coach Larry Eustachy said the Rams have been improved in that aspect recently. However, they entered Saturday having lost four of six, so the reassurance that came with Saturday’s win was crucial.
“I don’t think our guys were questioning us. I think they were questioning themselves a little bit,” Eustachy said. “We know this what we have to do. Can we do it? And they really proved it to themselves.
“I was thinking that during the game, ‘Do they really believe they can do it?’ As recently as this game, ‘Do they really believe they can get stop after stop after stop, rebound after rebound after rebound?’ There was a point and time where we were kind of teetering, down seven and it could go one way or the other, and I thought we really turned the corner.”
