Recap: Men's basketball beats a determined Oakland, 95-89

Nov. 22, 2015

FORT COLLINS, Colo. - The Colorado State men's basketball won its third straight to open the season, sliding by a determined Oakland squad, 95-89. Nov. 22 at Moby Arena.

For the second time in three games, the Rams had five players in double figures, led by senior guard Gian Clavell's first career double-double with career highs of 21 points and 12 rebounds. Senior guard Joe De Ciman tied a career high with 18 points, while junior guard John Gillon had 17 points, including 9-of-9 at the charity stripe, and eight assists. Oakland was led by guard Kay Felder with 23 points and 10 assists, while Sherron Dorsey-Walker had a double-double with 16 points and 13 rebounds.

This was a battle throughout the entire game, as the lead changed 21 times and the two teams were knotted on 18 occasions. The Golden Grizzlies led by two at the intermission, 43-41, but the two teams combined for 17 ties and lead changes in the final 20 minutes. With the game tied at 83 with 3:42 to play, CSU took the lead for good on back-to-back three pointers by senior Antwan Scott and De Ciman to go up 89-83. A pair of Gillon free throws make it an eight-point advantage and the visitors would get no closer than five in the closing minute.

Both teams shot the ball well, with the Rams hitting 46.2 percent (30-of-65) from the floor, while the Golden Grizzlies were 44.6 percent (33-of-74) from the field. OU won the battle of the boards, 42-38, but CSU outscored the visitors 23-13 on second chance points.

IN THEIR WORDS...
"What a great game! When have you guys seen a better game? I mean really since I've been here, have we've been in a more exciting game? I talked a lot about how good Oakland is and I think they're better than I thought. They have everything it takes and they had to travel, got in really late last night, the game was an earlier game, both teams were out of gas. I just thought we happen to make the plays at the end, but give both teams credit. There wasn't a more exciting game this weekend than that game right there or it was in the top five or ten for sure."

"What I like is that we scored 95 points. We'll get the defense right and we'll get the rebounding right. We haven't had a lot of time to work on it with all of these games, but it was slug fest and I thought it was really a draw. We won the game, but somebody had to win and somebody had to lose." -- CSU Head Coach Larry Eustachy on the overall game and CSU's effort.

"John did well; Jeremiah came in and played some big minutes. Coach said that he is only guard at any level to average 17 and 7 last year as a sophomore so we knew his talents. He had 27 points 12 assists and four rebounds in his first game so we knew he was going to be tough. We just had to contain him and I thought our guards did a great job of fighting through adversity and doing the best they could." - CSU senior Joe DeCiman said about handling OU's standout guard Kay Felder

"Our team pride itself on its depth. It's nice that it is happening now, I'm glad we got the win but we will watch film tomorrow and learn from this and see how we can play better and coach knows how these situations can play out." - CSU senior Joe DeCiman on the team effort.

"It helps a lot because the other team is forced to go small too but a lot of teams don't like to go small and they want to play big. So we got the advantage to play small because we all spread out and we all can shoot it and that's one of our strengths." - CSU senior Gian Clavell on the quickness of CSU.

"It was pretty much the way I thought. I thought that we could compete with them (CSU) and we did. I think they're a really good basketball team. We went on the road two time zones away from our own home. I was very pleased and proud of our team. It's a new team with a lot of new faces, and we have to learn how to finish. You have to give Colorado State a lot of credit because they made huge shots when they needed to. We got up by seven and they didn't quit and they came back and made shots and the crowd got into the game. I thought it was a really great college basketball game." - Oakland head coach Greg Kampe on his overall impression of game

"That's what we do. We've played five exhibition games, we went to Spain, and 89 is the least amount of points we've scored (this season). One thing that I want to say is that I have the greatest respect for Larry (Eustachy). I've known him for a long time. If I had a chance to say `OK, I want five college coaches in a room where I could sit and ask them any question,' he is one of the guys that I would want in that room. I have great respect for him and for me to be able to bring a team in here and play against his and compete with them, that was a good thing for Oakland." - Oakland head coach Greg Kampel on how they were able to do so well in the paint.

STAT OF THE GAME...

The Rams shot a perfect 11-11 from the free throw line in the second half, 23-28 (82.1%) in the game.

NOTES...

This was CSU's ninth straight regular-season win at Moby Arena
The Rams picked up their 19^th straight non-conference regular season win.
CSU head coach Larry Eustachy now has 72 wins in his time in Fort Collins, moving him into sixth in program history past his predecessor Tim Miles (71-88; 2007-12).
The win also improved Eustachy to 47-9 all-time at Moby Arena.
Gian Clavell tied his career-high with 21 points for the second consecutive game
Gian Clavell recorded career-high 12 rebounds
Five Rams scoring in double digits for second time this season (UNI)

UP NEXT...

Colorado State will continue play in the Corpus Christi Coastal Classic by hosting Abilene Christian, Nov. 24. The Rams will then travel to Corpus Christi, Texas to take on Portland (Nov. 27) and either UTEP or Southern Illiniois (Nov. 28).
The Wildcats open play in the tournament at Portland on Sunday before heading to Fort Collins for the Tuesday matchup.
ACU opened the year with a pair of victories over University of the Southwest (94-63) and Howard Payne (70-56).
Abilene Christian returns three starters from last year's 10-21 squad, led by senior guard Austin Cooke, who was the fourth-leading scorer (9.7 ppg) and leading rebounder (6.0 rpg) from last year's team. Also joining him in the starting lineup are returners senior guard Parker Wentz (11.7 ppg) and senior point guard Jalen Little (112 assists).
Through two games, the Wildcats have three players averaging double-figure points, led by freshman guard Jaylen Franklin at 15.0 ppg, while freshman forward Jaren Lewis is at 13.5 ppg.
The game will air across the Colorado State Sports Network, including flagship 105.5 FM ESPN, with Gary Miller on the play-by-play and Brian Roth handling analysis.
The game will have its video stream on the Mountain West Network, live audio on CSURams.com in partnership with Stretch Internet and live stats on GameTracker.

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