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The Colorado State men’s basketball team stayed in the game throughout, making host Stanford battle to come away with a win, 56-49, Nov. 20. With the loss, the Rams fell to 2-1 on the season while the Cardinal improved to 4-0 on the year.
After trailing by 12 at halftime, CSU opened second half on a 7-2 run over the first 4:16 to cut the lead down to seven at 37-30. Stanford got the lead back to as many as 13, but the Rams eventually got it down to six twice in the second half, including at 51-45 with 3:20 to play. However, Colorado State could not close it more from there on out and ended up falling to the Cardinal.
Colorado State was just 14-of-47 (30 percent) from the field, but limited Stanford to just 19-of-53 (36 percent). With their defensive effort, the Rams held the Cardinal to 25 points under its season average and its lowest point total in the early going of the season. Stanford won the battle of the boards slightly at 37-35.
“We’re going to continue to compete,” head coach Larry Eustachy said postgame about his team’s defensive effort. “I told the team after the game that I’m not sure they believed me that they could win this game. The defense is what we have been talking about. This Stanford is a NCAA Tournament team. We shot 28 percent and had 20 turnovers and got five major-league stops at the end of the game and just couldn’t anything with it. We got those stops at the end with three sophomores and a freshman on the floor. So if you’re not optimistic about this program, then you really don’t know what you are looking at.”
Sophomore Prentiss Nixon led Colorado State with a season-high 15 points, while junior Che Bob added six points and 10 rebounds. Senior Emmanuel Omogbowas just short of a double-double with nine points and nine rebounds. Redshirt-freshman Nico Carvacho contributed nine points and seven rebounds in the game as well. Stanford was led by Dorian Pickens with 17 points, including four 3-pointers.