Basketball is more than just a game.
Colorado State (20-6, 8-5 MW) rallied past Utah State (21-5, 9-4 MW) Saturday 75-55, in their annual “Fight like a Ram” tradition supporting cancer warriors in the community.
The Rams honored the fight and perseverance those individuals give everyday by recognizing their names on the back of the players jerseys during the game.
Using the platform of basketball, this is one of the greatest traditions this team does getting a chance to give back to the community and contribute to something much larger than themselves.
“It really puts everything into perspective,” guard Nique Clifford said. “People are dealing with other challenges that are way bigger than the problems we have, we’re just trying to win a basketball game. It’s really cool to be a part of something like that where you see people fighting real life problems and just the joy and hope that they still have on their face makes you want to smile and keep going.”
Playing with a chip on their shoulder after a frustrating loss to San Diego State (20-6, 9-4 MW), the Rams were fired up to be playing in front of the home crowd playing for more than just themselves.
Two of the main takeaways from their loss was their inability to pull down rebounds, and defend in transition. But Saturday produced a much different result out rebounding the Aggies 45-32, and being able to get back and defend much quicker.
“To be honest we didn’t do anything different as far as emphasizing offensive rebounds,” Coach Niko Medved said. “The emphasis was transition defense here. I mean this team is really good in transition that’s what they do: they rim run, they push it, they attack the lane, but I thought our hustle was great. We found ourselves making good decisions, we went and got the ball when we could, we got back, we got our defense set, and I thought they did both, we had a great fight.”
Getting the ball rolling and playing physical basketball was completely necessary for the Rams in order to pull off a win, and forward Joel Scott did just that.
Scott’s ability to get physical and ignite this Rams offense doesn’t come as a surprise as he has been doing it throughout the season. But because of his early exit due to foul trouble in his previous matchup, there seemed to be more fire than usual.
“Tonight was a good game to try and get back into it,” Scott said. “We lost it in the second half in the SDSU game, but we asserted ourselves early and doing that throughout the whole game really worked out well for us.”
This style of gameplay worked to the Rams favor, especially on the offensive side of the ball posting 48 points in the paint.
It’s certainly not uncommon for this group to outscore their opponent, but it was impressive how the defense came out and held the high-caliber Utah State offense to way under their average points per game of 81.1.
“(Utah State) is a really good team,” Clifford said. “The main part of their game is pushing the break and getting early touches to Great Osobor and Darius Brown leads that charge. I feel like we did a good job of getting back in transition, shutting that down and in the half court set guard for them. We had to all take pride on defense in our 1-on-1 matchups and I feel like everybody did that, credit to ourselves.
In spite of the paint masterpiece, the Rams couldn’t get anything going beyond the arc shooting 17% from 3 which is abnormal considering how well they have been shooting at this stage of the season.
This shows how versatile this group can be, not just relying on one aspect of the game, rather utilizing their ability to work as a team, playing the basketball that has worked so well for them this season.
“What was interesting was we really had a poor perimeter shooting night,” Medved said. “They went to the zone defense, I don’t think we got really bad looks but it was one of those nights that we get a perimeter shot to go down, but that’s life sometimes. Our guys stayed with it, they stayed poise and got a great win.”
Despite the pressure of the game at this stage of the season, the hearts and minds of the cancer warriors was more important than the outcome, and the Ram community did a tremendous job giving them the experience they all deserved.
For some of the Rams players including Clifford and Scott it was their first chance to be a part of the “Fight like a Ram” game, and although pulling off the win was special, spending time with the Cancer Warriors meant so much more.
“It’s a really special opportunity and experience to be a part of,” Scott said. “It’s really cool to meet those cancer warriors and talk to them about their stories and hear what they’re going through, and just get a chance to get to know them.”
Reach Luke Hojnowski at sports@collegian.com or on Twitter @lukehojo.