You see, some three years ago, Ed, a CSU Rams fan from Windsor, landed one of the absolute worst draws imaginable in the Bracket of Life.  Fifteen seed. Cancer Region.

, was a scrappy mid-major going on his second decade of retirement. He was a 20-point underdog against prostate cancer in the first round. He was a 15-point ‘dog against bladder cancer in the second. Kidney failure was an 11-point favorite at the Sweet 16.

“When you get it (from the) left, then the right, then a gut punch, you don’t know what the future’s going to hold,” DeCourcey recalled to me me earlier in this week.

“You don’t know if some (tumor) going to come back somewhere else. It’s a lot of unknowns. (You) can respond one of two ways. I was going the wrong way.”

Bladder cancer had started to have his way with him in the spring of 2023. Ed was too exhausted from the treatments to get the ball up the court. When he did, it felt as if there was always a tumor in his face. Cancer never likes to give you more than one shot during a possession.

“I was pretty down,” DeCourcey continued. “I thought, ‘Do I even want to live?'”

During a timeout one day, Ed checked his mail. In it was a card with CSU green and gold insignia everywhere. As a Rams women’s basketball season ticket-holder for about a decade, he was pretty sure what he was going to find inside.

Only he was wrong. Ed opened up a buzzer-beater, a half-court shot that tickled the twine of his soul, a card personally signed by CSU guard Hannah Ronsiek that read:

ED, THANKS SO MUCH FOR YOUR SUPPORT! WE WANT TO SEE YOU AROUND AGAIN!

“It kind of uplifted me a little bit, made me feel a lot better,” DeCourcey recalled. “That changed my attitude and all that stuff around.

“I said, ‘Oh, man, I don’t want to give up yet.’ It made me feel that I wanted to stick around.”

He’s glad he did. Ed’s 78, wry and spry, walking with a cane and a smile these days. His beloved Rams won 22 games a year ago. On Friday, coach Ryun Williams’ 27-7 crew, your 2026 Mountain West tourney champs, will play at the NCAA Tournament for the first time in a decade, facing off against fifth-seeded Michigan State.

“They’re fast,” Ed said of these Rams, whom he says are the best team Williams has ever put together in FoCo. “They share the ball. Remember when (that) Michael Jordan (documentary) was on TV? And they asked (his Bulls teammates), ‘What would you do when it came down to crunch time?’ And they’d say, ‘Get the ball to Michael and get out of the way.’ You don’t see any of that (with CSU). They always make the right pass, the right play.”

Ed was one of several cancer survivors CSU honored at the Rams’ annual “Fight Like a Ram” game back in January. In a celebration of life, faith and hope, Williams’ players wore the names of cancer survivors — cancer warriors — on the backs of their respective jerseys. DeCourcey was repped by freshman guard Allie Roden, who’d lost her uncle to cancer three years earlier.

Buoyed by these Rams, Ed did what you’ve got to do to win in March — he rebounded. Both cancers were fading by 2024. At the start of 2025, DeCourcey had regained 85% of this strength, which was as good as he’d felt in years.

In fact, Ed had enough juice again to start bringing doughnuts to preseason practice, with Williams’ permission, two Septembers ago. These days, the Rams know Doughnut Day is coming and make requests. Last summer, guard Lexus Bargesser, who’d just transferred in from Indiana, mentioned to Ed that she suddenly had a hankering for a cherry Bismark.

Fast forward to September 2025. Ed turned up with boxes of doughnuts, as per usual. Only at the end of practice, Williams stopped Bargesser before she could join the line and dig in.

“I got doughnuts for everybody except Lexie,” DeCourcey said.

“Yeah, her defense hasn’t been that great,” Williams dead-panned, trying not to wink at Ed.

While Williams was feigning tough love, Ed ambled up with a bag in his mitts and handed said bag to Bargesser. She opened it.

Cherry Bismark. As requested.

“You told me you wanted a cherry Bismark,” DeCourcey said. “So here it is.”

Welcome to the Ramily.

And to think: DeCourcey became a CSU booster largely by kismet. A man had moved in his neighborhood, just down the street, a guy who regularly wore CSU gear while out mowing the lawn or working on his backyard.

Ed stopped by one day to compliment the man on his patio and ask what had brought him to FoCo. Ryun Williams introduced himself to DeCourcey as the new women’s hoops coach at CSU. He invited Ed and his wife to check out a game. They did. They got hooked.

“We used to go to theater in Denver a lot and we stopped going,” Ed said. “We got season tickets (to CSU) and switched our whole plan … ‘”Jersey Boys” again? We’ve seen all those (shows). Let’s switch it up for a while.’ I thought we could always go back if we wanted to.”

That was 14 years ago. They never switched back. Willams has since won 281 games at CSU, notching 10 seasons of at least 20 victories, made two NCAA tourneys and played in six WNITs. Ed moved out of that neighborhood and into an independent-living facility in Windsor a few years back after the cancer sapped his balance and mobility. But they’ve remained friends.

He’s never lost the faith, though, and the bracketologists think he might need it against the Spartans.

The Spartans will be the first “Quad 1” foe, officially, CSU has faced all season; the Rams were 1-2 against “Quad 2” foes.

The Rams will also be playing without their leading scorer and offensive linchpin, Bargesser (15.2 points per game, 5.8 rebounds, 2.7 assists per game), and jumping into the Octagon with a Big Ten team without your former Big Ten guard is less than ideal. Bargesser suffered a non-contact injury against UNLV in the Mountain West tourney semis that ended her season.

That’s an awful lot of bismarks to make up for in the Big Dance, which might be one reason the oddsmakers aren’t terribly impressed with the Rams’ chances. BetMGM.com earlier this week pegged CSU as an 18.5-point underdog, which is the second-largest point spread among the bracket’s four 5-12 matchups.

Vegas sees a long shot.

Ed? Ed sees a miracle.

“They’ve still got some pretty good players. But who knows?” DeCourcey noted. “If they get hot from the 3-point line and they get Michigan State in foul trouble, that could happen. We’ll see.

“Hey, these kids are tough.”

Ed would know. DeCourcey’s sister is a retired nurse. After he knocked off two cancers and kidney issues, she sent him a little bobblehead of the superhero Iron Man with a note that read, ‘You’re an Iron Man.’

“(Williams) is always talking about it: ‘You guys, just so you know, that little thing for (the team), that card, became a big thing for (DeCourcey),'” Ed recalled. “Ryun talks about the little things making a difference. Don’t ever underestimate that little things can make a difference.”

Or save a life. It’s March. Survive and advance, baby. Survive and advance.

Last week, was coming off the euphoria of winning the opening game of its final Mountain West Tournament via a buzzer-beater. But in the semifinal of the tournament against UNLV in Las Vegas — essentially a home game for the Rebels — CSU’s best player, Lexus Bargesser, suffered a

Instead of folding without Bargesser, the Rams found a way to rally to beat UNLV, and then went on to topple in-state rival Air Force in the tournament championship to earn an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. No. 12 CSU (27-7) takes on No. 5 Michigan State (22-8) in the opening round of on Friday in Norman, Okla.

“To beat UNLV, to beat Air Force with (Bargesser), it just tells me our players were really focused and locked into what had to get done,” Rams head coach Ryun Williams said. “They were not going to leave Vegas without a fight for that trophy.”

That’s what the Rams did en route to their first March Madness berth since 2016, and just their seventh overall appearance in program history.

With a team identity rooted in lockdown defense, the Rams held their three opponents in the Mountain West Tournament to just 53.3 points per game on 30.7% from the field and 20.3% from 3. That included stifling Air Force in the championship, as the Falcons scored only 42 points, including just 16 in the second half.

On the season, the Rams rank in both points allowed per game (54.9) and opposing field goal percentage (35.0). And sans Bargesser, the Rams punched their ticket to March Madness thanks to the play of a pair of seniors who have bucked the transfer portal-trend by spending their entire college careers in Fort Collins.

Guards Marta Leimane and Hannah Ronsiek have combined for 237 appearances and 135 starts over their four seasons with CSU as part of four-straight 20-win teams. When Bargesser limped off the floor against UNLV, Leimane — nicknamed the “Latvian Bear” — came off the bench and delivered. She tallied 16 points in 32 minutes, including hitting 4 of 5 from distance, while Ronsiek turned in one of the Rams’ top defensive performances.

“(Leimane) had to really score the ball well against Vegas and was big reason why we won that game,” Williams said. “She accepted a different role and delivered. And then she had to guard (Air Force’s Milahnie) Perry, the leading scorer in the league, the next night. So, whatever we asked (Leimane) to do, she did it.

“Same thing with Hannah in that tournament. She guarded post players. We asked her to sacrifice and be tough and nasty. That was her role, and that’s how we beat Vegas and Air Force because it just made us much more difficult on defense. Whatever we’ve needed, those two players have delivered.”

‘What we’ve been building for’

Both Leimane and Ronsiek said that entering the transfer portal never crossed their minds. Heading into this season, Ronsiek correctly forecast that the Rams would be an elite defensive team, while Leimane said she believed the program’s final year in the Mountain West before moving to the rebuilt Pac-12 in 2026-27 presented a great opportunity to win the conference.

“I settled in really well by my sophomore year here, and I just had a lot of faith in this team and where we could get going forward,” Leimane said. “I thought if I left and disrupted our balance, we might not get where we are right now. Because this was the year that Hannah and I looked at things and thought, ‘This is it — this is what we’ve been building for and the year we can actually win the Mountain West.'”

In addition to Leimane and Ronsiek, sophomore guards Brooke Carlson and Kloe Froebe, redshirt freshman guard McKenna Murphy and senior forward Madelyn Bragg — a transfer from Division II Northern State who in the Mountain West Tournament — will also be key in the Rams’ chances of an upset of Michigan State.

The Spartans boast the 10th-best offense in the country at 83 points per game, meaning the best version of CSU’s defense will have to show up. The Rams also need to take care of the ball, which has been a strength so far this season, considering CSU is ranked the best in the nation with 10.4 turnovers per game.

Should the Rams upend the Spartans, it will be their first March Madness win in and will match the 1998 squad for the biggest NCAA Tournament upset in program history when the No. 12 Rams beat No. 5 Drake 81-75.

“The biggest key is we’ve got to value the basketball and not create offense for (Michigan State),” said. “They’re a very high-powered offensive team, and so that’s critical. You let them get out and really get running, they’re hard to stop.

“We just have to compete on the ball. Rebound extremely well. We’re going against a longer, taller body type than we’ve faced, and probably more physical, but that’s what this time of year is about. We’re going to play the best and we’ve got to elevate our game, and we’re up for that challenge.”

CSU earned a No.12 seed in the women’s NCAA Tournament and will face No. 5 Michigan State in the first round in Norman on Friday.

At a watch party at Canvas Stadium on Sunday evening, the Rams learned their fate and cheered along with their head coach when the school showed up in the bracket.

“Colorado State, on a national stage, that����ap where we belong,” CSU head coach Ryun Williams said. “And for these young women to be representing this university, there’s nothing better than that. Their competitive makeup is right where it needs to be for an NCAA Tournament,”

The Rams earned a spot in the 68-team field by of the Mountain West Conference tournament.

They have been waiting since winning that title Wednesday night to learn their tournament fate. Even on Sunday, the Rams’ section of the bracket was one of the last to be revealed.

“I’ve been on a high a little bit since the championship and just kind of taking that all in and not looking too far into the future,” CSU senior Hannah Ronsiek said. “But now, I think it����ap time to look onto the next team.

“I’ve wanted to do this for four years. Obviously, this is the goal, but I’m just super happy that we could get it done in my last year.”

This will be CSU’s first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2016, which was also the last time the Rams won the MWC tourney.

It will be CSU’s seventh appearance in the NCAA Tournament and second under Williams. The Rams are 5-6 in the tournament, with their last victory dating back to 2001.

The farthest CSU has advanced in the tournament is the Sweet 16. That occurred in 1999 when the Rams were led by Becky Hammon and Katie Cronin.

CSU is 22-7 on the season. The Rams went 15-5 in conference play and won three games in three days to win the league tournament, defeating Grand Canyon 61-59, UNLV 66-59, and then Air Force in the championship game.

The players and Williams believe what they did in Las Vegas earned them enough respect to earn the 12 seed they received.

“It was super overwhelming to know that they see our great determination, and they see how hard we work and just to gain that No. 12 seed is really promising for us,” CSU sophomore Kloe Froebe said.

The Rams have been led this season by senior Lexus Bargesser. The Mountain West newcomer of the year averaged 15.2 points per game for CSU but was injured in the conference semifinal game against UNLV and did not play in the championship game.

Sophomore Brooke Carlson averages 11.3 points per game and Froebe is averaging 10.7. Froebe is also the team’s leading rebounder, averaging 6.8 per contest.

If the Rams win their first-round game, they will face either host Oklahoma or Idaho in the second round.

The 2026 NCAA Tournament is here, which means it����ap bracket season. And we’re here to help. Download the bracket here:

Ali Farokhmanesh looked great Saturday at Moby Arena, wearing a calm smile and a white CSU polo. Dude sounded like holy heck.

“I mean, (I’m) yelling more than I was, talking more, just constantly talking,” the new Rams men’s basketball coach told me after his squad scrimmaged for the public Saturday, the warm-up act for a Homecoming football tussle against Hawaii.

“So I think that’s the biggest adjustment. That’s the biggest thing I had to figure out is how to get my voice to stay. Because the first event we did in downtown (Fort Collins), it was gone. I started like shaking up and down. I sounded like I was going through puberty again, like …”

“Pretty much,” he laughed. “If you can find something for my throat to fix that, let me know.

“I always joke with our guys, though, I’m saying our body language matters and how you respond to refs, how you talk to them. Well, then, I shouldn’t lose my voice because I shouldn’t be (yelling). We’ll see how it goes on November 3.”

, when it’s time to change, then it’s time to change. Farokhmanesh, 37, is re-arranging who he is and what he’s gonna be.

No Nique Clifford? No Niko Medved? No problemo. For now, anyway.

If CSU football feels a bit like a marriage that has lost its spark, Rams hoops is still ensconced in nuptial bliss. You’d be hard-pressed to find a heart in Fort Fun that doesn’t love Farokhmanesh.

Although a first-time head coach, Farokhmanesh is working overtime these days to stay out of his wife Mallory’s doghouse. The other night, she caught him falling asleep while watching practice film. All parties agreed he could pick it back up at 5:30 in the morning.

“I feel like I try to have a balance, right?” Farokhmanesh said. “Which you never really do, but you’re always fighting for. So, she does a good job of managing that with me, too. I think she helps me a lot with that.”

On the court, with a half-dozen new faces, the Rams’ lineup is a work in progress. Rotations are in flux. Medved’s fingerprints are still there, but with tweaks and tucks — some spread, some motion, constant movement.

Farokhmanesh was the boy genius with the whiteboard on the sidelines, feeding the Niko machine. On Saturday, that board was in the hands of assistant coach Cole Gentry. Besides work-life balance and trying to do too much all at once, the next biggest challenge for first-time coaches is delegating authority. Giving up the stuff they used to obsess over.

“I feel like I’ve done a pretty good job (with that),” Farokhmanesh said. “I’m not doing the subs right now. I’m not doing the baseline out of bounds (plays) now. Those are all things I did before. I’ve given up the board. But I’m still going to have a say in all of it. So, it’s giving it up, but it’s also like, you’re still involved. I don’t know. It’s just different.”

The Ali Era’s “soft” opening is a tricky one: The Rams play an exhibition at Creighton on Oct. 25 in advance

Farokhmanesh and Jays coach Greg McDermott are both Northern Iowa Panthers, which is fun.

“And after what they did in Iowa State, I’m a little more nervous,” the Rams coach said. “If we want to be an NCAA Tournament team, you’ve got to play teams like that. Does that help us to just go scrimmage a D2 (school)? Does it? We’ll get something out of it. But I want to challenge our (guys), and I want to put them on a stage. Because if we want to play at the highest levels, we’re going to have to beat people on those stages and compete with them.”

Farokhmanesh, long one of Medved’s best teachers and recruiters, is already taking names on the recruiting trail. ., is the highest-ranked prep signee for the Rams this century, according to the 247Sports.com database.

“If you’ve got time, he’s in here working with you,” said CSU forward Rashaan Mbemba, who leads the Rams roster in returning minutes with 615 (19.2 per game) and returning points (7.0 per game). “And I think that’s something you’ve got to really appreciate. I mean, he has four kids, he has a wife. Being a head coach, a husband, a dad. Now he’s also like, kind of, for a lot of guys, he’s the first person to talk to. As a team and as a community, we really appreciate that.”

And they show it. Veteran Ram staffers noted a bigger crowd than usual for an open scrimmage, buoyed by Homecoming weekend and more than mild curiosity. CSU president Amy Parsons sat at midcourt with athletic director John Weber throughout the scrimmage as green-clad alumni came and went.

Afterward, while players sat at a long table under one of the baskets, providing autographs for fans, Farokhmanesh hung back. The new coach shook hands, smiled for cell phone pictures and signed posters for wave after wave of kids.

“Here you go, buddy,” Ali said to one.

“What’s up, dude?” he said to another.

A towheaded tyke in a green Rams getup approached nervously.

Farokhmanesh disarmed him with a grin and scribbled away on his poster.

“Can I get a ‘Go Rams?'” the coach asked.

“Go Rams,” he replied.

Hey, when fate hands you a honeymoon, best enjoy it while it lasts. That goes double for the voice.

The Kings, who were 5-0 going into the title game, lost to Charlotte, 83-78. However, the two ex-Rams made a huge impact for their team during the tournament.

Clifford, who was drafted in the first round by the Oklahoma City Thunder and then immediately traded to the Kings with the 24th pick last month, made his presence known upon arrival in Las Vegas.

In the Kings’ opening game against Orlando, Clifford scored 17 points with four rebounds, three assists and two steals. Then, against Chicago, he had 19 points, 12 rebounds and five assists. Against Phoenix, he had 19 points, three rebounds and three assists.

With his team 3-0, Clifford then had 19 points, seven rebounds and nine assists against Cleveland, and in the semifinals against Toronto had seven points, five rebounds and three assists. In the championship game loss against Charlotte at the Thomas & Mack Center, where he and the Rams won the Mountain West Conference tournament just last winter, he had 10 points and eight rebounds.

He was considered one of the stars of the summer league after averaging 15.2 points, 6.2 rebounds, 4.6 assists and 1.2 steals, while shooting 55.4% from the field and 50% on 3-pointers.

Stevens had two points against the Magic but heated up as the tournament went on. He had 10 points and four assists against the Bulls, and five points, seven rebounds and four assists against the Suns.

Against the Cavaliers, he had 13 points and five assists, and against the Raptors had six points, six rebounds and seven assists. In the championship game against the Hornets, he had two points and two rebounds.

As the Kings’ first-round draft pick, Clifford will be part of the team’s roster when the season begins. Stevens signed a two-way deal with Sacramento on July 8.

Introduced as the program’s 21st head coach on March 28, Farokhmanesh and his staff are getting their first looks at a team that includes eight new players, along with six returners, who hope their upcoming season together ends in the program’s third straight NCAA Tournament appearance.

So far, all is going well for the first-year head coach and his new-look team.

“It����ap been great,” Farokhmanesh said. “They’re building on action. They’re getting more organized. We’re kind of putting it all together. There’s one more element we want to add, but it����ap been fun to watch them just compete, to be honest. They’ve shown up every day.”

Farokhmanesh earned his first head coaching job after former head coach Niko Medved left Fort Collins for Minnesota following a season that saw the Rams go 26-10 overall and 16-4 in the Mountain West Conference. The Rams won the Mountain West tournament and advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

CSU defeated Memphis in the first round before losing at the buzzer, 72-71, to Maryland in the round of 32.

Farokhmanesh believes he was ready to take over when Medved left, just as the CSU administration was. Farokhmanesh was named the head coach just days after Medved’s departure.

“Niko did such a good job getting me prepared,” Farokhmanesh said. “Also, I have a great staff. It was intentional how it was built.”

Farokhmanesh and his staff’s first order of business was refilling the team’s roster. The combination of graduating seniors and transfers left some holes to fill, and the new staff didn’t waste any time filling them. It took just a few weeks for the Rams to have a full roster again.

The most notable departures were Nique Clifford, who will play next for the Sacramento Kings after being selected with the 24th pick in last week’s NBA draft, and starters from last year’s team in Kyan Evans and Jaylen Crocker-Johnson. Through the transfer portal, Evans ended up at North Carolina and Crocker-Johnson joined Medved at Minnesota.

Several players off last year’s roster did return, most notably junior forward Rashaan Mbemba, junior center Nikola Djapa and sophomore forward Kyle Jorgensen. They have spent the past several weeks meeting and learning to play with the eight new freshmen and transfers.

“It����ap very great to be back on the court,” Mbemba said. “I got to meet the whole team. I think in those first (two) weeks, we bonded very good. I think it����ap great to be back on the court practicing again, getting to know my new teammates.

“I’m trying my best to help my team if they need help. I know our offense is kind of difficult, especially for people who don’t know it yet. I remember my freshman year, I had Patrick Cartier and Isaiah (Stevens) teach me a lot, so I’m just trying to and hoping I can do the same for my teammates.”

The six transfers Farokhmanesh and his staff picked up after his hiring include Josh Pascarelli, a junior guard from Marist; Carey Booth, a junior guard from Illinois; Brandon Rechsteiner, a junior guard from Virginia Tech; Jase Butler, a junior guard from Washington; Augustinas Kiudulas, a junior forward from Virginia Military Institute; and Jevin Muniz, a senior guard from Florida Gulf Coast.

Along with incoming freshmen Jojo McIver, a guard from Killeen, Texas, and Docker Tedeschi, a guard from Benton, Ill., the Rams have spent the past few weeks acclimating themselves to a new coach, team and environment.

Pascarelli said that hasn’t been hard to do, and he is looking forward to continuing the program’s recent success.

“I got recruited by Ali, great guy who everyone knows,” he said. “He was telling me everything that you really want to hear as a person, not just basketball-wise, but that there were good people here, everybody was real tight. Even though we just got here a few weeks ago, everyone was trying to hang out with each other. Just the coaching staff and the culture that has been built here, and their producing and winning that����ap been going on, I feel like I can be a part of that.”

Forming bonds on and off the court, as well as the practice time the team gets this summer, has the squad and its new coach hoping it will have something to build on when preseason practice begins in late fall.

The former Colorado State Ram was selected by the Kings with the 24th overall pick in the NBA draft Wednesday night at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. Sacramento moved into the No. 24 slot via a trade with the champion Oklahoma City Thunder.

For Clifford, it was the realization of a lifelong dream when his named was called by NBA Commissioner Adam Silver.

The Colorado native, who went to high school at Class 3A The Vanguard School in Colorado Springs, spent three seasons with the Colorado Buffaloes before landing at CSU for his final two years of eligibility. In three seasons at CU, he played in 82 games and averaged 5.4 points and 3.6 rebounds per game.

He flourished in Fort Collins, and his draft stock skyrocketed after he averaged 18.9 points, 9.6 rebounds, 4.4 assists and 1.2 steals per game in his final season with the Rams. In three games at the Mountain West Conference tournament, he averaged 25 points, 10.3 rebounds and 4.3 assists as CSU won the tournament and he was named MVP.

After his first season at CSU, he tested the NBA draft waters but opted to return and used his fifth year establish himself as a first-round pick.

Wednesday night, his name was called, and now the next leg of his journey will begin in Sacramento.

Clifford is the second CSU Ram to be drafted in the first round in the past four years. David Roddy was selected with the 23rd pick in the 2022 draft. Prior to Roddy, CSU’s last first-round draft pick was Jason Smith, who was selected 20th overall in 2007.

Many draft analysts are projecting Colorado State guard Nique Clifford as a mid first-round pick. If it happens, he becomes just the fourth Rams player to be selected in the first round, joining Bill Green (1963), Jason Smith (2007) and David Roddy (2022).

It would also be the second straight year a Colorado prep star was picked in the first round, joining former Prairie View standout Dalton Knecht. Clifford starred at The Vanguard School in Colorado Springs.

Here’s a look at where national analysts are predicting he will be drafted:

Bleacher Report | Jonathan Wasserman | Updated May 5

No. 15 to Oklahoma City Thunder (via Miami)

“Nique Clifford’s 21 points, seven boards and six assists weren’t enough to hold off Maryland, but his overall production and development from a year ago definitely won more NBA scouts.

“He had come off as a prospect to watch this season based on his ability to play a Swiss Army knife role by finishing plays, passing, defending different spots and making enough open threes. But he quickly turned into a top-option skill player who can get his own shot or serve as the offense’s playmaker.” .

CBS Sports | Adam Finklestein | Updated May 5

No. 15 to Oklahoma City Thunder (via Miami)

“Clifford is an athletic wing who thinks the game at a high-level and can also really pass the ball. If the shooting gains we’ve seen recently prove to be sustainable, then he looks poised to evolve into a 3-and-D wing with some secondary playmaking on top. Even OKC, a team flush with young assets, could use one of those.” .

Yahoo! Sports | Kevin O’Connor | Updated April 30

No. 16 to Orlando Magic

“Clifford is a tough-as-nails wing who does it all. He defends multiple positions, crashes the boards and scores from everywhere. As a super senior with only Mountain West pedigree, he lacks experience against high-level competition despite his age. But his skill-set would, in theory, allow him to fit right away on Orlando’s roster, providing shooting to a team that ranked 25th in 3-point attempts and last in percentage.” .

The Athletic | Sam Vecenie | Updated May 1

No. 17 to Minnesota Timberwolves (via Detroit)

“Clifford had about as strong of a close to the season as a player can have, leading Colorado State from the middle of the Mountain West in January to the cusp of the Sweet 16 if not for a Derik Queen game-winner as time expired in the Round of 32. From Feb. 8 onward, Clifford averaged 21.5 points, 9.6 rebounds, five assists and 1.4 steals while shooting 51 percent from the field, 47 percent from 3 and 80 percent from the line. He’s a 6-6 wing who can dribble, pass, shoot and defend, which makes him a really solid plug-and-play option for a Timberwolves team that needs some cheap rotational options moving forward, given the deals they will likely have to shell out for Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Naz Reid this summer to keep their core together.” .

The Ringer | J. Kyle Mann | Updated April 30

No. 17 to Minnesota Timberwolves (via Detroit)

“If the experiences of Rob Dillingham and Terrence Shannon Jr. are any indication, it����ap clear that Minnesota’s standard for staying on the floor in a meaningful way is high. That����ap an exciting thing for a franchise that has desperately wanted to win for decades, but it makes getting better a tricky thing for young players. Clifford was a late bloomer in college and thus is an older player, so his pure upside might not have Minnesotans leaping for joy. But he has a wide offering of skills, even if each individual skill doesn’t project to rise to an elite level: He’s a consistent off-ball mover who can hit 3s, he has experience working in pick-and-rolls, and he even started to add some post touches at the elbows. Mix that with some demonstrated ability to pass the ball, and you can see how he would help to shore up key areas of need for the Wolves while maintaining their defensive identity.” .

Sam Kayser of League Ready first reported Evans had entered the portal, and now Evans is listed as a portal entry by both 247Sports and On3.

Evans has yet to confirm his portal entry in public or on social media.

The 6-foot-2 point guard averaged 10.6 points and 3.1 assists per game in 2024-25, his first season as a starter. He gained national notoriety with his performance in the Rams’ NCAA Tournament first-round win over Memphis.

He made six 3-pointers against the Tigers and led the Rams with 23 points in their first round-of-64 victory in the tournament since 2013.

Evans shot 45% from behind the 3-point line for the season and had at least one 3-pointer in each of the final 15 games of the season. He shot 60% (24-for-40) from 3-point range over eight games in March as he helped lead the Rams to their first Mountain West tournament title since 2013.

On Monday, CSU freshman forward Jaden Steppe announced on X that he is entering the transfer portal as well. Steppe appeared in seven games for the Rams last season, totaling 12 minutes on the court. He scored seven points, five of which came Feb. 15 against Wyoming.

Players who enter the transfer portal are allowed to return to their team, but that doesn’t happen often.

Pilipovich joins CSU staff

On Monday, CSU officially announced the hiring of veteran coach Dave Pilipovich to Farokhmanesh’s staff.

Pilipovich, 61, spent the past three seasons as an assistant coach at New Mexico under Richard Pitino. Pitino has since taken the head coaching job at Xavier, but instead of following Pitino, Pilipovich is joining the Rams’ staff.

The new Rams assistant has almost 40 years of coaching experience, including a nine-year run as the head coach at Air Force from 2011-20. He has also coached at Michigan, Eastern Michigan, Robert Morris, Florida Atlantic and in the San Antonio Spurs organization.

He joins two other assistants on Farokhmanesh’s staff. On Friday, it was announced that current Rams staff members Tim Shelton and Ken DeWeese are being retained.