Jarod Lucas’ half-court buzzer-beating shot stuns Colorado State’s basketball with Nevada winner.
This week, Niko Medved was tasked to sum up the intense Mountain West campaign in one word.
“Intolerant,” he uttered.
ruthless, brutal, and cruel.
The Colorado State men’s basketball team could use all those things and more in light of their shocking 77-74 loss to Nevada at Moby Arena on Tuesday.
Astonished by Nevada star Jarod Lucas’s game-winning 3-pointer at the final moment coming from the half-court line, the Wolf Pack stunned the more than 7,000 spectators who had been electrified by Isaiah Stevens’ incredible tie for the Rams with two seconds remaining. It was an intense night. There isn’t really any other option, according to CSU head coach Niko Medved. The game’s last thirty seconds were filled with confusion.
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Despite playing without their star player Kenan Blackshear due to injury, Nevada (23-6, 10-5 Mountain West) dominated early on and took an 11-point lead into the half. CSU (20-9, 8-8 MW) gradually reduced the deficit during the second half.
It appeared, however, that it would not be sufficient. With 30 seconds remaining, the Rams were behind by six points (73-67) after trailing the entire second half, which was filled with fouls. And then the unlikely occurred. Lucas, who shoots 91% of his free throws, missed three of his four attempts from the line in two trips.
For CSU, Stevens pounced, scoring one basket to reduce the lead to two and tying the game with 2.5 seconds remaining with a signature midrange jumper. Nevada surrounded Lucas, who was travelling in a lateral motion close to his personal free throw line. Before getting up for the shot, he dribbled twice while Patrick Cartier and Jalen Lake were not too far away from him.
Naturally, you don’t want to commit a foul in that circumstance. Lucas is an expert at jumping into you, and you wonder if he’ll try to get blocked on that as well,” Medved said. “Perhaps we could have given him even more pressure.” I’m not sure. He really made a half-court shot that banked in.
Lucas’s game-winning shot made up for his missed free throws, and he celebrated it by racing around the court on both sides, showing his adversarial home crowd. It resulted in CSU’s third straight loss. Hard. Tragic. Undoubtedly, every one of these games counts, but in particular, you want to start performing at your best basketball in late February and early March, according to Stevens. We just need to piece everything together and connect the dots; it’s not even necessary that we sense that we’re not performing well. The game was strange, jerky, and full of fouls.
In the last 20 minutes, there were 47 free throws and 34 fouls. There were 52 free throws and 55 fouls during the game. CSU was 18–22 from the queue, and Nevada was 23–30.
Lucas finished with 23 points. Hunter McIntosh (who began in lieu of Blackshear) had 14, Tre Coleman had 13, as well as Daniel Foster had 13. In the second half, CSU limited Nevada to 29% shooting, but they also gave up some crucial offensive rebounds, and Nevada’s supporting players made clutch plays when it mattered most.
Joel Scott had 15 points and Stevens had 23 (along with six assists), but the Rams’ offence was still not clicking. 6–18 (33%) for CSU from the 3-point line. The Rams are losing three straight games and could be headed in the wrong direction, even though the loss isn’t particularly damaging in terms of NCAA Tournament metrics (it’s a Quad 2 loss).
There are just two games left in the regular season for CSU: a 2 p.m. Saturday on Senior Day, March 2 at its residence towards Wyoming, and a March 9 game at Air Force. In order to avoid being on the bubble for the NCAA Tournament and going to Las Vegas over the West Mountains tournament, the Rams might need to win both.
This is a company with a profit margin, correct? Your goal in being here is to succeed. However, I believe it would be incorrect to claim that everything is flawed. “I fail to see that,” Medved remarked. We need to improve because we faced three strong teams—two of which were on the road—and we performed admirably overall. However, we need to locate an additional piece of equipment here.
Following a week ago when New Mexico prevailed with an attempt at the rim, this is CSU’s second consecutive loss at the buzzer. Certainly unforgiving.
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