What we learned in CSU's most disappointing showing of the season

FORT COLLINS, Colo. — Colorado State men’s basketball (18-10, 9-6) missed a golden opportunity to keep up in the race for the No. 2 spot in the Mountain West. After mounting one of the program’s largest second half comebacks ever in the win over Wyoming last Saturday, CSU fell to UNLV 80-56 at the Thomas and Mack Center late Tuesday night.

In the blowout loss, CSU jumped out to a 7-2 lead but other than the early run from the visiting Rams, UNLV was basically in complete control throughout.

Leading the way for UNLV was sophomore guard Bryce Hamilton. Hamilton entered the game as the Rebels’ leading scorer in league games and the 6-foot-4 guard certainly looked the part on Tuesday.

Hamilton led all scorers with 25 points on 11-of-18 shooting and pulled down 10 rebounds in 33 minutes of action as well. After multiple years of turmoil, the future of Las Vegas hoops is definitely brighter with a baller like Hamilton to be the face of the program.

Slow start dooms CSU

After a brutal first half in the Wyoming game, CSU looked just as bad if not worse in the first half against UNLV. The Rams committed a plethora of sloppy turnovers on offense, looked like they were playing in mud with how slow their defensive rotations were and really made zero effort to keep the Runnin’ Rebels off the glass.

As a result of CSU’s poor effort, UNLV was able to extend its lead to 25 at one point in the first half and took a 51-29 lead into the break. In the opening 20 minutes alone, the Runnin’ Rebels out-rebounded the Rams by 16 (25 vs. 9) and knocked down nine 3-point attempts as well.

If the Rams are going to make any kind of run in the postseason, eliminating these slow starts is going to be a big key. As talented as the core of the roster is, the reality is that CSU isn’t going to win a lot of games if they keep digging themselves these massive holes.

The sky isn’t falling but the lack of effort was alarming

The most disappointing aspect of Tuesday night’s showing was not the fact that the Rams lost to UNLV. After blowing out the Runnin’ Rebels in the first matchup, you knew that T.J. Oltzelberger’s squad would come out with more intensity the second time around, and the west coast squad has legitimately been very good at home all year.

While there is no shame in losing — one team comes up short in every single contest — there’s no doubt that the Ram faithful will have a bad taste in their mouth after watching UNLV completely outwork CSU on both ends all night.

UNLV dominated the glass, finishing the rebounding margin +20 on the night (46 vs. 26). Really there wasn’t any aspect of the game where the Rebels didn’t play better, though. They had more assists, points in the paint, blocks, steals and fastbreak points.

If you’re not getting the point by now, the Runnin’ Rebels absolutely dominated the Rams in every way imaginable and made it look easy. Considering UNLV isn’t actually a better team than CSU, though, the massive disparity really come down to effort. One team played hard for 40 minutes and one team looked like me slumped over in McCarran Airport after three straight nights of hitting the strip.

The Rams have to be better in their next three.