Colorado State men's basketball's tragic season ends

 

This is the end, the end my friends, the end.

As Jim Morrison sang 50 years ago, those haunting lyrics ring true today for Colorado State Rams men’s basketball.

On Friday night, the Colorado State Rams men’s basketball team played in their final game of the year.

So, for Antwan Scott, Tiel Daniels, Joe De Ciman and Fred Richardson III; this is the end, the end my friends, the end.

Back in the beginning of the season, little expectations were given to these Rams. Still they started out white-hot, running off five straight victories.

But things got ugly in a hurry. The Rams lost three straight games – including second half collapses against UTEP and rival Colorado – then knocked off Arkansas Fort-Smith before being beaten by Northern Colorado in Greeley.

Mid-way through December and Colorado State were 6-4 while Richardson rather weirdly said he wasn’t interested in playing any more, but instead wanted to coach. It was interesting, the only time I’ve ever heard a player say he’d rather sit on the bench than do what he loves most, play basketball. It was a sign of the possible discord building between the players and their coach.

Then, sadness struck when the injury bug bit Gian Clavell. Clavell, who was the team’s clear leading scorer early, broke his left hand and also suffered a tear in his shoulder, which Larry Eustachy said would take six months to recover from.

That injury happened just before the team’s biggest non-conference game, at Kansas State, and despite the Rams fighting stalwartly, they lost 61-56. Now, at 6-5, the wheels could completely fall off.

They didn’t, as the team rallied. CSU won two straight and went into conference play at 8-5; hopes were still high they could make the postseason.

Just before conference play, we saw more of that “disconnect” though, which Eustachy himself used to describe the communication breakdown between him and the players. Eustachy’s coaching focuses on extreme effort, starting on the defensive end of the floor.

Eustachy’s hierarchy of basketball importance list like this: 1. Defense. 2. Rebounding. 3. Togetherness. 4. Offense.

Of course, ask an 18-22 year old player what he finds most important and you’ll likely see that list flipped on its head.
So, even when the Rams beat USC Upstate inside Moby Arena on Dec. 21, it didn’t feel like a win in the postgame press conference. As Eustachy explained, “A lot of them have not been brutally honest spoken to. We’re big on brutal honesty. They’ve never had it that way.” It seemed, that “brutal honesty” was hurting the team’s morale, and three losses in their first five conference games dashed chances of making it to the NCAA Tournament.

And then, the biggest loss for the team happened 2,000 miles away.

Emmanuel Omogbo’s parents as well as his two year old niece and nephew perished in a house fire. It was a tragedy that was felt throughout the program, throughout the university and it was a story that went national.

Sometimes, though, out of supreme sadness comes something happy. People from all across the country came together to donate over $100,000 to Omogbo, most of the money flooded the GoFunMe account set up by the school in the 72 hours following the tragedy.

It was touching to see fans of other schools – even CU – reach out and donate. Patrick Kilkenny of Oregon donated $10,000 himself. Seeing the money helped restore faith in humanity, that we can call come together to help someone who’s hurting immensely.

That moment brought the Rams together; they played for and with “E” during the win over the Air Force Falcons, just one day after the loss of his family members. Then, assistant coach Ross Hodge flew with Omogbo back east to be with him during likely the toughest time of his life.

When Omogbo returned, his CSU teammates came together and bought him a big screen TV. Before that, Omogbo was watching TV with them, but never had his own. This was a move of friendship, togetherness from his teammates.

That tragedy had a way of strengthening the Rams, even if it didn’t always show on the court. This team was one struck by tragedy. Clavell’s injury was a personal tragedy and it was a big loss to the team, too, Omogbo’s tragedy is the biggest and most well known, and then there was Antwan Scott’s personal loss of his mother after she spent two years in a coma. Scott opened up to us, telling how he wound his way down a long, hard road to wind up in Fort Collins.

“I was at Idaho University in 2012 and I just left school,” Scott told BSN Denver in an exclusive interview in December. “I was like, ‘I give up.’ I left school and went back home, took care of her. I was like, ‘I’m done with basketball.’ Some coaches kept calling me and kept calling me and I was like, ‘I’m done. I’m not going to do it anymore.’

“But there was one coach who really stood out to me, coach Price at Grambling State,” the guard continued. “He made a home visit and came to see my mom and it meant a lot to me. That let me know that he really wanted me.”

So, he transferred to Grambling for the 2013-14 season while visiting his mom tirelessly, sleeping for days on end in the hospital. When she passed away, Scott turned to basketball as a healer, becoming a gym rat which he acknowledges prepared him to play so well for the Rams this season.

Down the stretch the Rams came, and they “beat” the Boise State Broncos when James Webb III’s buzzer-beater was waved off at the end of the first overtime in Fort Collins. CSU won in double overtime, a game Eustachy said they still haven’t won. The Mountain West had to re-examine and then re-examine the re-examination to determine the refs weren’t wrong, but the special stopwatch technology built into the replays was incorrect and Boise should have won the game.

The same could be said for the Rams; there were many games down the stretch they should have won.

But, just as regular season ended, the Rams finally came together and embraced Eustachy’s style. They were playing better defense, and also sharing the ball better on the offensive end. They defeated Air Force to end the regular season in a special way on Senior Night.

Then, CSU handled San Jose State with ease in the first round of the Mountain West Tournament, playing with more preparation and confidence than we’d seen all year. They knocked off Boise, too, a solid team with sensational individual talent. But, the season officially came to a close with a loss to Fresno State, who went on to represent the MW in the NCAA Tournament. Eustachy then denied invitations to the CBI and Vegas 16, which became the Vegas 8 with only eight teams accepting invites.

All season long, the defense was lacking for Colorado State. But, another theme that continued during many of the Rams’ losing efforts was their inability to score for long stretches of time. That, coupled with terrible transition defense led to many break-away buckets for opponents.

The players asked to step up weren’t willing to do what it took early in the season to win games. They didn’t want to play gritty defense, to dive on the floor for loose rebounds. At least, not with consistency. After their final regular season game, Scott asked us in the media: “Did we play defense consistently tonight? Now I can stop reading that.”

Too little, too late.

Sometimes, things happen for a reason. Sometimes, transition years are a reality.

Think of this: If Clavell is indeed healthy all season long, there’s no chance Scott has a way to come in and be so successful. Scott ended the year as the Rams single-season 3-point king and was one of the smoothest players on the court Colorado State has seen in many years.

And, next year – if he’s granted a medical hardship – Clavell will be able to lead the team, along with Gillon and Omogbo along with youngsters like Nixon and Paige.

The future is bright for CSU.