Colorado State dominated Utah State late Friday night to secure a spot in Saturday’s Mountain West Conference tournament championship game.
CSU grabbed the first lead of the game and never trailed, defeating the Aggies, 83-72, at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas.
The Rams (24-9) won their ninth straight game and advanced to their first Mountain West tournament championship game since 2017. They will face Boise State at 4 p.m. Saturday.
Kyan Evans got the scoring started for CSU and the Rams started the game on a 6-1 run and jumped out to a 10-3 lead less than three and a half minutes into the game.
Utah State cut the CSU lead to one at 10-9 with 15:31 left in the first half, but that would be as close as the Aggies would get.
The Rams took their largest lead of the first half, and the game, on a dunk by Nique Clifford that made it 49-27 with 21 seconds left before halftime. The Aggies made a 3-pointer at the buzzer to cut the CSU advantage to 49-30 at the break.
After CSU took a 64-36 lead, its largest of the game, with 13:50 remaining, the Aggies began to claw their way back into the contest.
With 1:36 remaining, the Rams’ lead was only seven points at 76-69, but CSU was able to close out the victory without allowing the Aggies to get any closer.
Clifford led the Rams with 26 points, 11 rebounds and six assists. Evans and Jalen Lake each had 14 points for CSU.
The Rams swept the season series from the Broncos, winning 75-72 in Fort Collins and 83-73 in Boise to close out the regular season on March 7.
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