FORT COLLINS — Bring on the Wolf Pack.
If Colorado State is going to win its first regular season conference title in 27 years, the Rams might as well win it outright. The only way to do that was to beat rival Wyoming on Tuesday night, which the Rams did, 78-76, on a 3-pointer by with 3.6 seconds left to hold off a furious comeback by the Cowboys.
The dramatic victory, the second straight the Rams have won on a last-second 3, sets up a huge matchup in their regular season finale Saturday at Nevada. If the Wolf Pack win at San Jose State on Wednesday, the winner of Saturday’s game in Reno would be crowned the outright Mountain West regular season champions.
Colorado State (21-9, 13-5) hasn’t won a conference title since winning the second of two straight WAC championships in 1989-90. The program’s only MW title of any kind came when they won the conference tournament in 2003.
Nixon finished with a team-high 23 points, preventing a second-half collapse by CSU in which the Rams led by 11 with just less than 10 minutes to go.
The Rams came out hot in front of its largest home crowd of the season, a near-sellout of 7,883, taking a 14-2 lead four minutes in. The fast start was part of stretch in which they made 8 of 9 shots to build a 16-point lead midway through the first half.
BOXSCORE:
Wyoming responded with a 17-4 run to make it a one-possession game on a 3-pointer by Hayden Dalton at the 6:51 mark before a 3 by Nixon in the final seconds of the first half gave the Rams a 48-41 lead at the break.
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