FORT COLLINS — Before Tuesday night, the last two times Colorado State men’s basketball hosted Air Force at Moby Arena, the game went to overtime.
Air Force won in 2023 before the Rams were triumphant last year.
Tuesday night at Moby, the Rams made sure no extra time would be needed as they pulled away from the Falcons in the final 10 minutes for a 79-58 victory.
The win was the fourth straight for the Rams as they improved to 14-7 overall and 8-2 in the Mountain West Conference.
“Another quality win,” CSU head coach Niko Medved said. “It always is against these guys.”
Nique Clifford came three assists short of recording the first triple-double in program history. He finished with 22 points, 10 rebounds and seven assists, enough for his ninth double-double of the season.
Jalen Lake added 14 points and Jaylen Crocker-Johnson had 13. The Rams shot 51.8% from the field while outrebounding the Falcons 37-29.
CSU is now halfway through conference play, having won eight of their first 10 Mountain West contests going into a bye week before a trip to The Pit in Albuquerque.
“I think we’ve gotten a lot better as the course of the season has gone on,” Clifford said. “We’re starting to just see the potential of our team and how good we could really be. But the biggest key to our success is not getting complacent; continuing to grow and get better.”
CSU opened the second half with a one-point lead, and the Falcons kept it close early, tying the game at 40-40 in the period’s second minute.
From there, the Rams went on an 10-2 run to go ahead 50-42 with 14:03 left, but the Falcons again cut it to 52-49 before CSU went on another run.
The Rams scored the next five points to take their largest lead of the game at 57-49 after a three-point play by Nique Clifford with 11:09 remaining. Air Force never got closer than that.
CSU extended its lead to 11 after a three-point play by Rashaan Mbemba with 7:45 remaining and continued to grow their advantage all the way to the end of the game.
The Rams held the Falcons to only four field goals on 25 attempts in the second half. Three of those field goals were 3-pointers.
“First half, we didn’t do what we wanted to do on the defensive side of the ball,” CSU’s Kyan Evans said. Then the second half, we held them to 16% shooting, so we definitely did what we wanted to do in the second half.”
Neither team could pull away in the first half. Air Force scored the first five points of the game, but CSU quickly tied it at 5-5 on a 3-pointer by Crocker-Johnson.
Midway through the first half, it looked like the Rams had some momentum as they took a 23-17 lead on a jumper by Evans and took their largest lead of the half on a layup by Nique Clifford that made it 29-22 with 6:40 left before halftime.
But the Falcons didn’t go away. They went on a 5-0 run to cut the CSU lead to 29-28 with 4:06 left in the first half, but CSU answered with a 5-0 run to go ahead by six again at 34-28 with 3:14 on the clock.
Air Force then closed the first half with a 9-4 run to make it a one-point game, 38-37, at halftime.
Lake led the Rams with 10 points in the first half. Crocker-Johnson and Clifford each had nine.
“I didn’t like our mentality defensively in the first half,” Medved said. “I thought we were kind of soft. I don’t think our hands were very active. I didn’t think we contested shots worth a dang. It’s safe to say it was an eventful halftime.”
In the second half, the Rams outscored the Falcons 41-21 while holding them to 16% shooting from the field.
CSU will be back in action next Wednesday, Feb. 5, at New Mexico.
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