No. 13 Colorado State overpowers UNM in Mountain West opener

Jan. 2—FORT COLLINS, Colo. — The Colorado State Rams looked the part of a battle-tested title contender and every bit worthy of their No. 13 national ranking.

The New Mexico Lobos, at least during much of the second half, looked lost, overmatched and unprepared for conference play.

Powered by 21 points from Patrick Cartier and 18 points, 8 assists from All-America candidate Isaiah Stevens, the Rams beat up on the UNM Lobos, 76-68, snapping the Lobos' 11-game winning streak.

"Credit to Colorado State. They're a terrific team," UNM coach Richard Pitino said. "I thought foul trouble — it was really, really hard. They made 18 free throws to our four, which was obviously challenging. And we didn't do a great job defensively rebounding the ball beginning of the second half. The first half we were really good. I thought second part of the second half, we were good. But (we) didn't set the tone coming out of locker room defensively like we needed to. So, terrific team. We will humbly watch it to see where we can get better and get ready for Saturday night."

UNM struggled with foul trouble, shooting and chemistry in its first game played with all 12 scholarship players available since its Nov. 6 season opening win against Texas Southern, though freshman Tru Washington who has been sick was throwing up in the second half and not available for the Lobos down the stretch.

Colorado State outrebounded UNM 38-29 and posted the highest points per possession (1.134) against the Lobos all season.

CSU used scoring runs of 10-0 and later 9-0 to blow open what was a 33-30 halftime lead into what was at one point a 62-45 lead with 7:29 remaining in the game. The final points on the latter rally came on a Stevens' jumper that had the announced Moby Arena crowd of 5,165 roaring as loud as it had at any point in the game.

Despite a bit of a late-game rally (UNM did hit 8 of its final 10 shots and cut the CSU lead down to 6 points in the final minute), the game largely wasn't as close as many had anticipated from two 12-1 teams with conference title hopes.

UNM falls to 12-2 overall and 0-1 in Mountain West play. The Rams are 13-1 and 1-0.

"They're so well coached. They run so many sets. And Stevens with the ball in his hands, I mean, he's tremendous," said Lobo shooting guard Jamal Mashburn Jr., who had 13 points on 5-of-15 shooting. "So you know if he's, if we're not loading up on him and making him make tough shots and take tough shots, it can be a long night."

Three first-half fouls by Jaelen House kept him off the court much of the game and certainly out of rhythm.

He didn't start the second half after CSU led 33-30. When House checked back in with 13:11 left, CSU was up 47-40 and the Lobos were out of sorts.

He hit a layup with 10:23 left to end a 5:08 scoring drought for the Lobos and then a 3-pointer to cut the lead to 53-48 with 9:53 left before picking up his fourth foul and returning to the bench.

"Yeah, it hurt. He's when he's on the court, we're obviously a lot better," Pitino said. "But he picked up that fourth foul — that really, really hurt us. So he's got to find a way to defend without fouling."

Four Lobos scored in double figures and JT Toppin (17 points, 11 rebounds) was the first Lobo freshman to have a double-double in his Mountain West debut in Mountain West era. Donovan Dent had 10 points and nine assists.

The Lobos found a lot of success early with Toppin and Nelly Junior Joseph scoring at the basket, but then, be it CSU adjustments or UNM just failing to get them the ball inside again, the Lobos frontcourt stopped scoring inside.

"It wasn't by my design. I think it was just throughout the course of the game," Pitino said. "I thought ball screens, dives to JT were really, really good. We needed to certainly get towards that basket a little bit more."

Said CSU coach Niko Medvad, "We changed up ball screen coverage a little late in the first half and into the second half. I thought they did a really good job probably of understanding, maybe early in the game, how we were trying to play the pick and roll and I thought they were ready. And then our guys did a great job, I thought, of adjusting as the as the game went on. I thought we did a really good job with the ball screens as the game went on."