Colorado State University Athletics
Saturday, December 3
Fort Collins, CO
2:30 PM
Colorado State
6-3,0-0Mountain West
83
vs
88
Northern Colorado
4-5,0-0Big Sky
1
2
F
Northern Colo.
37
51
88
Colorado St.
34
49
83
Rams Out of Character in Home Loss
12/3/2022 5:38:00 PM | Men's Basketball
Northern Colorado shoots past for win at Moby Arena
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 3, 2022
CONTACT: Ryan Pfeifer, Assistant Director of Communications
(720) 290-8886 | ryan.pfeifer@colostate.edu
Rams Out of Character in Home Loss
Northern Colorado shoots past for win at Moby Arena
FORT COLLINS, Colo. – Every now and then, a team steps out of character.
Gets away from the root of what it has to be in order to find success and take a different path. A momentary lapse of judgment. That's what Niko Medved witnessed Saturday at Moby Arena.
"For whatever reason, I thought this game was lost in the first half here tonight. I thought we had two good days of practice," the Colorado State coach said. "We kinda came out, and quite frankly, I thought we just looked a little cool, a little casual, and I haven't seen that from this group. I wish I knew why. I don't know why, but I thought that's what happened. We didn't really take much away from them at all.
"This is a team that doesn't really go to the offensive glass; we gave up 15 second-chance points. We gave up 2s, we gave up 3s … We just didn't really play with the intensity that we needed. When you do that, you're playing with fire."
The Rams were burned in the end, too. Northern Colorado started well offensively, became extremely hot to start the second half and leaned on guard Daylen Kountz down the stretch to post an 88-83 victory, dropping the Rams to 6-3 on the season.
Defensively, the Rams were rarely the team they needed to be, which was the part that stung the most.
"That was pretty much where it stemmed from," guard Isaiah Stevens said. "We know we have to be better than that moving forward. We're going to take a step back, look at the tape, take the coaching and just try to improve."
Offensively, Colorado State has success in the post. Patrick Cartier scored a season-best 23 points, hitting 10-of-15 from the floor, and starting center James Moors poured in 14. Stevens, in just his second game back from injury, scored 20, and Jalen Lake added 11.
The oddity was leading scorers John Tonje and Isaiah Rivera were never really part of the mix. They didn't score in the first half, and they only combined for seven shots all game, Rivera taking just one. But again, that wasn't the side of the floor where the Rams had real issues.
It was defensively. The Rams looked at the Bears as better than their numbers, based on the schedule. But entering the game shooting 41.8 percent from the field and 35.4 percent from 3, UNC flipped the script and shot 57.1 percent overall, 42.9 percent from 3.
Never were the Bears more deadly than coming out for the second half, making their first seven 3 pointers – some of them tough shots – and turning a 3-point edge to a 15-point advantage in a flash.
"We know that they're a really good 3-point shooting team, and it's one of those things where we can't let that happen," Cartier said. "Obviously, they hit some tough shots, but that's also on us to play better defense and have hands and be engaged."
It takes a lot of energy to come back from a hole so deep, and the Rams actually did. With 3:58 remaining in the game, Moors hit a free throw to give the Rams a 74-73 edge, but it didn't last long. Kountz, who led all scorers with 27 points, scored nine of them in the final 4 minutes, getting a 3-point play off an offensive rebound, one of seven the Bears had in the game as they outrebounded the Rams 35-20 and scored 15 second-chance points.
The finish hurt, but it was the reason they were there Medved knew as the real culprit.
"To me it was we gave up some uncontested layups at the rim early, our ball-screen coverage was atrocious and we weren't locked in," he said. "When you start doing that and giving up easy ones at the rim, then sometimes the tough ones go down. Or we get them to miss, and we don't gain the rebound. It's those kind of things that come back to haunt you in a game like this."
In the course of a long regular season, a team is going to have a dud or two. Saturday, the Rams rarely fizzled. There was the stretch of good defense in the second half which allowed them to come back and almost save themselves, but it was just that – a flash with no follow up boom.
"It was just a grit, want-to, locked in, dialed in. That's' really all it was," Stevens said. "That's more on us than anything else. We have to bring that same mindset and intensity for a full 40 minutes."
Which is how Medved sees his team. The Rams have to grind. They have to play together. And they have to do it on both ends of the floor. He missed the fire the team normally possesses, and while it was an odd departure from who they are, Medved had to admit it is who the Rams were during the day.
Plain and simple. The natural question for him and his team was a simple why.
"We don't win being cool here," Medved said. "We win because we try to outwork people and out-team people, and clearly, we didn't do that today."
Team Stats
UNC
CSU
FG%
.571
.517
3FG%
.429
.500
FT%
.882
.769
RB
35
20
TO
13
6
STL
0
4
Game Leaders
Scoring
Pts
23
FGM
10
3FGM
3
FTM
0
Pts
20
FGM
7
3FGM
3
FTM
3
Pts
14
FGM
5
3FGM
1
FTM
3
Pts
11
FGM
4
3FGM
3
FTM
0
Players Mentioned
F
/ Men's BasketballF/C
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