Colorado State University Athletics
Colorado State
BYU
High-powered BYU too much for Rams
1/10/2009 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Jan. 10, 2009
By John Manuszak
Athletic Media Relations
FORT COLLINS, Colo. – Mountain West Player of the Year Lee Cummard scored a game-high 18 points on 8-10 shooting and BYU shot .571 (36-63) from the field as they opened conference play with a 86-60 win over Colorado State on Saturday afternoon at Moby Arena.
Over a 15 minute span at the end of the first half and the beginning of the second half, the Cougars (13-2, 1-0 MWC) outscored the Rams 45-16 and led by as many as 37 points in the second period to cruise to the win.
“There’s a lot of difference between us and BYU right now,” said Head Coach Tim Miles. “In my eyes, the greatest difference is the mentality. They (BYU) don’t get rattled, they don’t get down. We do get rattled when we do get down.”
Andy Ogide scored 12 points, his most since Dec. 14, and added eight rebounds while Marcus Walker added 12 points for the Rams who fell to 5-11 overall and 0-2 in Mountain West action.
The Rams hung with the Cougars at the start of the game and trailed by three points (25-22) with just over seven minutes left in the first half. But from that point on, it was all Cougars. BYU scored 16 of the next 20 points to take a 41-26 lead en route to a 46-30 halftime lead. The Cougars outscored the Rams 21-6 in the first 7 minutes of the second half to blow the game open as they took a 65-36 lead with 13:12 left in the game.
“The biggest thing is that when you don’t play well offensively against BYU, they turn into the 1985 Lakers against you,” said Miles. “They run it right down your throat. In transition, they make threes, they get to the rim, they’re quick and they just gobble you up. We broke down on offense and they made us pay on the other end.”
Colorado State, which began implementing a new offense on Saturday, struggled from the field. The Rams shot .333 (11-33) in the first half and .360 (9-25) in the second half to finish with a season-low .345 (20-58) shooting from the field. CSU went 3-16 (.188) from beyond the arc and did not connect on a three-pointer until late in the second half. BYU, on the other hand, went 10-20 (.500) from beyond the arc in the win.
“We implemented a new offensive system tonight, and there’s no question that you could see our guys thinking about it and not playing,” said Miles. “You could see guys not quite sure. That hurt us a little bit, but that’s a risk worth taking. In retrospect, you can’t ask if that was the right thing to do (to switch up the offense), that’s what we did and there’s no looking back on it. We’re not going backwards.”
On a day when very little went right for the Rams, there were a few bright spots. Junior guard Arin Dunn played well in his first game in a Rams uniform as he scored three points and added a steal in eight minutes. Fellow junior Mike Annesse went 2-2 from the field, including a three-pointer, for five points and two steals in just three minutes of action. Michael Lebsack also made his collegiate debut on Saturday and helped spark the Rams score the final 11 points of the game.
“It’s all based on practice for the scout team,” said Miles. “If you perform well in practice, we’re going to get you into the game. Arin Dunn has played very well in practice since coming back from Christmas break."
The Rams will try to get back on track when CSU hosts conference-leading UNLV (13-2) on Wednesday. Tip-off at Moby Arena is set for 7 p.m. MST. Tickets are available by calling 1-800/491-RAMS, or logging onto CSURams.com.
