FORT COLLINS — Colorado State pulled away in the final minutes to defeat UNLV, 70-62, on Friday night at Moby Arena.
The Rams outscored the Rebels 9-1 in the final 94 seconds of play to secure their second Mountain West Conference victory of the season and first league win at home. CSU is now 11-5 overall and 2-3 in conference play.
“I thought that was the first time we won a game where it was a true rock fight,” CSU head coach Ali Farokhmanesh said. “We’ve won shootouts when our offense is good, when both teams are kind flowing. We won those games, but that’s the first rock fight that we’ve won. So, I’m really proud of our guys for the way they fought tonight.”
CSU led 32-29 at the beginning of the second half and was able to hold onto that lead until the Rebels went ahead 40-38 on a 3-pointer by Kimani Hamilton with 16:19 remaining.
The Rams tied the game and took a 45-42 lead on back-to-back 3-pointers by Jase Butler and Brandon Rechsteiner, forcing an animated UNLV coach Josh Pastner to call a timeout with 14:38 left to play.
The Rebels retook the lead on a free throw with 11:55 remaining and led until a pair of free throws by Rashaan Mbemba gave the Rams a 59-58 advantage with 2:57 to play.
A jumper by Jevin Muniz pushed the CSU lead to 61-58, but the Rebels tied the game at 61 on a three-point play with 1:56 on the clock. A layup by Muniz followed by a three-point play by Butler gave the Rams a 66-61 advantage with 36 seconds remaining, and CSU was able to hang on for the victory.
Rechsteiner led four Rams in double figures with 15 points. Carey Booth added 13, Mbemba 11 and Josh Pascarelli 10. Booth and Mbemba also led the team in rebounds with six apiece.
It was Mbemba’s first action since Nov. 26 against Virginia Tech at the Battle 4 Atlantis.
“Obviously Rashaan was huge,” Farokhmanesh said. “It’s not always in the box score, the numbers. Obviously he played well, too, but just his presence, the intensity that he brings, the joy that he plays with, you felt all that in his physicality.”
The game opened with the teams trading runs. CSU scored the first nine points on back-to-back-to-back 3-pointers by Pascarelli, Rechsteiner and Pascarelli again.
UNLV didn’t score until 4 1/2 minutes had already gone off the clock, but when the Rebels finally did break through, they went on an 11-0 run to go ahead 11-9 over the next five minutes.
CSU tied the game at 11 on a basket by Rechsteiner, but the Rebels answered with a 3-pointer to go ahead 14-11 and the Rams never led again until Mbemba made a layup to put CSU ahead 29-27 with 1:30 left before halftime.
From there, CSU outscored UNLV 5-2 to close the first half.
The Rams only shot 34.8% from the field in the first half but were 11-of-15 from the free throw line. CSU outrebounded UNLV 19-14 in the opening period. Booth, Pascarelli and Rechsteiner each had eight points in the first half.
“We started off 9-0, but we’ve just got to sustain that,” Muniz said. “When we go on runs like that, we’ve just got to push that nine-point lead to 15 and just keep building from there, because we could build a lead early in the game to help us and then we could just control the game.”
CSU will be back in action Tuesday at Fresno State. The Rams won’t play at home again until Jan. 20 when they host Air Force at Moby Arena.
