Colorado State basketball embracing 'surreal' moment at NCAA Tournament

INDIANAPOLIS — Don’t take it personally if your text to Chandler Jacobs has gone unanswered.

The senior guard was flooded with messages and calls after the Colorado State men’s basketball team landed a No. 6 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

The March Madness experience is exciting and overwhelming for those involved — a moment all basketball players dream of that's now a reality for the Rams.

“This whole process has been so surreal,” said Jacobs. “For it to culminate in this moment with us being on the eve of being in the NCAA Tournament, for me it’s just a dream come true.”

It’s a moment nobody on this CSU team has experienced before. None of these Rams have played in the Big Dance. Even coach Niko Medved is in his first tournament as a head coach after being on the bench as an assistant when the Rams went in 2012 and 2013.

Director of player development Joe DeCiman appeared in the 2013 NCAA Tournament as a freshman at CSU, but the only person in the program with extensive experience at this stage is assistant Ali Farokhmanesh.

Farokhmanesh, of course, has experienced the grand stage more than most. A Sports Illustrated cover boy after his Kansas-slaying shot for Northern Iowa in the 2010 tournament, he’s using that experience to help his team navigate the scene.

“Hey, maybe turn your phone off for a bit. You don’t have to text everybody back. There’s a certain point where you can lock in,” Farokhmanesh said. “It’s different, but it’s not different. Can you stay in the moment and stay locked in? At some point you have to lock back in.”

That’s the balance. The players took the time to take a team picture at center court of Gainbridge Fieldhouse after Wednesday’s open practice.

They were loose and having fun there, having student assistants join shooting drills at the end. But afterward they’ll go to a private practice where they lock in on the game plan to face No. 11 Michigan at 10:15 a.m. Mountain Thursday in the tournament's first round.

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Medved is always big on encouraging his team to embrace the things that make college basketball fun, believing the joy helps feed loose and better play.

“I want these guys to take moments to say hey, to look around, to enjoy it, to appreciate the fact that they're here,” Medved said at Wednesday’s pregame press conference.

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“This is a huge moment in these young people's lives. This is what they dreamed of growing up as a kid watching college basketball, and I think to rob them of that is a huge mistake. At the same time, you can still do that and understand and dive into what you have to do to compete and beat a great Michigan team.”

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There’s no way to predict how the players will react. Some rise to meet the moment of an NCAA Tournament and others struggle.

This team insists they’ll be ready when Thursday’s tip comes.

“So many of us are eager to go out there and compete and stay locked into the game plan,” point guard Isaiah Stevens said.

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This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Colorado State embraces NCAA Tournament appearance against Michigan