Colorado State's struggles continue in blowout loss at Boise State

2023 has not been kind to the Colorado State Rams. 

After falling to Boise State, 80-59, on Saturday night, CSU has now lost eight of its last 10 games. Now just 2-7 against Mountain West competition, the Rams (10-12) are really reeling in a league that has proven to be even tougher than anticipated. 

Unlike CSU’s last three losses, all of which came down to the wire, this one was pretty much a blowout from the start. The Broncos were able to jump out to an early lead with a hot shooting performance from deep. And after leading by as much as 20 in the first half, Boise State was able to cruise into the break with a comfortable 15 point cushion (44-29). 

The Rams did show some life early on in the second half. Thanks to a couple of defensive adjustments by Niko Medved, which actually started with going to a full court press late in the first, CSU pressured Boise State’s guards and disrupted the Broncos frequently over the first six minutes or so of the second half. 

Unfortunately for CSU though, after getting as close as 51-45, the Broncos once again got rolling on the offensive end. And just like they did in the first half, Boise State closed out the game with an impressive shooting performance to ultimately bury the visiting Rams. 

The biggest CSU killer in this one was Tyson Degenhart. The sophomore went 10-of-11 from the floor and led all scorers with 22 points. In three career games against the Rams, the 6-foot-7, 232-pound forward is now averaging just over 15 points a contest, but his game was on another level in this one. It did not matter if there was a hand in his face, if the shot clock was about to run out, or if he was seemingly off balance, Degenhart gave CSU buckets all game long. 

Additionally, Boise State had three other scorers finish with 14 or more points and all of them hit multiple threes. Marcus Shaver hit multiple from deep as well, though he only had 8 points on the night. 

On the other side, not much came easy for the Green & Gold. Isaiah Stevens finished with 19 points on 6-of-12 shooting but the majority of those points came late. The senior point guard also paced the Rams with five assists. While Stevens did make some impressive shots late, he just couldn’t do enough to overcome CSU’s streakiness as a whole, especially with how consistent Boise State was on the other end. 

As a team the Rams shot just 18 percent from 3-point range (4-of-22), which was a big problem since the Broncos made 45 percent of their looks from deep (11-of-24). Boise State shot 59 percent from the floor and had 32 points in the paint as well though, so it’s not like they struggled much from anywhere.

Coming off of this type of performance on the road, it will be interesting to see if the Rams can respond better at home against UNLV on Tuesday night. CSU managed to take down the Rebels in a dramatic overtime win in Las Vegas on Jan. 14. Maybe they’ll be able snag another one from their longtime conference foes, whom will be coming off a late-night game against Utah State this weekend.