FORT COLLINS — Oh, Jerrod Calhoun got the number of the truck that just hit him, all right. It was a 12 seed.
“They’re playing well. Yeah. Playing really good,” Calhoun, the Aggies’ coach, told me courtside at Moby Arena after his 24-6 Utah State squad, which won at Saint Mary’s and beat Iowa in Kansas City, got pulverized by CSU, 93-66.
“They certainly got better defensively. They had a lot of transfers, like all of us … they’re a great team, well-coached. I have a ton of respect for them.”
Bracketologists? Not so much. The 20-9 Rams, winners of five straight and 10 of 12, aren’t even a widget on Jerry Palm’s smart phone yet.
Getting drilled in Boulder back in December by Tad Boyle’s worst-ever CU team left a mark. And a 1-5 record in what the NCAA terms “Quad 1 games” (against schools presumed to make the Big Dance) doesn’t help the argument.
But the last six weeks should. Saturday absolutely should. CSU drained 14 of 21 3-pointers against the NCAA tourney-bound Aggies on one end of the floor. On the other, they went out and held KenPom.com’s No. 15 offense in the country to 22 points in the first half and 66 points for the day.
“It kind of just felt like each game, we were slowly (realizing) like, ‘Wow, when we have our stretches where we’re really guarding, we’re a really good team,’” transfer CSU guard Bowen Born, an Iowa native who came off the bench to drain three of those 14 treys as part of an 18-point performance, noted with a grin.
“And then that has also just, speaking personally, given me so much confidence every single game. Because I know, regardless of how we play on offense, we’re going to have a chance to win, because we’re really defending people.”
Coach Niko Medved’s Rams (14-4 in conference) are getting grindy again, leapfrogging the Aggies (14-5) for sole possession of second place in the Mountain West on the strength of a defense that’s allowed 65 points or fewer in 12 of 18 league games.
“Considering the stakes of the game and it being March, I would say it was our best performance of the year,” Medved said. “The energy in the first part of the game was just palpable.”
Jaylen Crocker-Johnson’s second trey of the first half gave the hosts a 15-2 lead five minutes into the contest. From there, it was a parade of daggers. An 18-4 Rammies lead begat 28-10, which begat a Born trey and a 33-10 cushion. CSU drained eight of 10 from beyond the arc over the first 20 minutes, effectively sealing the deal before halftime.
“We owed them one,” said senior wing Nique Clifford, whose 26 points and nine assists paced the Rams. “We didn’t come out and play a full 40-minute game when we were up there … we were really locked in defensively. And that’s why it showed on the court (Saturday).”
Everybody’s having a good time at Moby these days. Students got a free pizza slice for turning up. Next Tuesday’s home finale vs. San Jose State will be “Dollar Beer Night.” Broncos icon Terrell Davis, CSU’s proud “Rambassador,” got on the jumbotron early to help raise the roof.
“Just a really good dude,” Clifford said of TD. “He has really great advice … I just like getting to talk to people like that who are well-respected. And like I said, he’s a legend around here.”
He’s not the only one. Clifford’s always had these little NBA moments, NBA flashes, both at CU and in FoCo. They come more frequently now, with the Colorado Springs native inheriting Medved’s time-to-take-over-now button from departed point guard Isaiah Stevens. He doesn’t shoot triples like No. 4, granted, but the moments of individual brilliance are far more spectacular.
With 5:04 left until halftime, Clifford swatted a 3-point attempt out of the air and started a run-out the other way, one that culminated in a Crocker-Johnson putback and a 39-15 CSU lead.
But The Nique Show might’ve saved its best highlight until there was 3:32 left on the clock. Clifford set up with ball along the left corner of the arc, pump faked from three, saw a lane open up and dribbled the baseline all the way to the hoop. Then it got funky. The CSU wing stretched high to the glass, almost parallel to the hoop, the way a young Julius Erving did in his ABA days, before slamming the ball home with one hand.
From Clifford to Crocker-Johnson (18 points) and Born, this is a heck of a fun team to watch when they’re flying. Since Christmas, once Medved figured out his rotations and Kyan Evans (15 points) found his stroke, everything started to click, piece by piece.
“The biggest thing for us is just the improvements that we’ve made,” Born said. “Early on, we had some guys that were injured. Rashaan (Mbemba) wasn’t playing. And I think in terms of our identity, he plays a big part in that as well — he just asserts himself in the game. He makes a difference. There are some really good teams in the league, and we’re right there with them … we’re a confident group. And we’re really talented on defense and really talented on offense.”
At-large cases are built on sexy wins, especially away from home. Sadly, the Rams’ resume could still use a few more. The NCAA’s NET ranking, the new holy criterion for the selection committee, favors teams that stack up Quad 1 games and Quad 1 victories. To get the latter, you need to beat a top 30 NET team at home, a top 50 NET team on a neutral floor, or a top 75 team on the road.
CSU went into Saturday’s game with six Quad 1 games, which is kinda “mid,” as the cool kids say, and a very sub-mid 1-5 record in those contests. Yet Calhoun’s Aggies turned up at FoCo with a 34 NET ranking, which just misses the Quad 1 cut-off, and got their collective tails handed to them.
The Rams close out the regular season March 7 at Boise State, which sported a 43 NET ranking heading into the weekend. On one hand, CSU probably has to sweep the Spartans at home and Broncos away to seriously enter the Big Dance convo nationally.
On the other hand, it means their fate is in their hands. And those hands have been laying absolute haymakers lately.
“I mean, would you want to play you guys right now?” I asked Born.
“I would not,” the Rams guard replied. He paused, looked up at the scoreboard and grinned again. “I would not.”
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