Runnin' Rebels catch fire from behind the three point line in monster road win over Colorado State
Oscar Bellfield had 18 points on 6-16 shooting and Anthony Marshall had 16 points on 7-11 shooting to lead UNLV to a majorly needed victory. Chace Stanback also added 12 points and 11 rebounds for a double-double. UNLV's 8-19 (43%) shooting from behind the three point line really was what carried the Rebels offense in the second half.
Andy Ogide had 19 points and 7 rebounds in a losing effort for the Rams, but Wes Eikmeier was the one who riled the crowd up. Eikmeier had 13 points and 2 big momentum turning three pointers. Colorado State shot 47 percent from the field, but they also shot only 68 percent from the charity stripe. That, combined with 17 turnovers and a -7 rebounding margin, was the premise of the Ram's demise.
In the first half, these teams looked as if they had forgotten to score the basketball. The halftime score was 27-22, but the score wasn't even an indication of how bad each team played. Colorado State had 10 turnovers in the first half, yet UNLV only had 6 fast break points. Neither team had hit a 3 point shot until the final three minutes of the half. I could list stat after stat about how bad the first half was, but that would bore you to death.
Regardless of how bad each team played, it was clear Colorado State had the momentum and was playing better. The Rams had completely smothered the UNLV offense and it looked like CSU only had to stretch the game out a couple more possessions in order to make the game unreachable.
Then UNLV came out in the second half and the light bulb went on, UNLV remembered how to shoot a three pointer. The Rebels made two straight three point shots that set off a 9-2 run to start the second half. From that point on, UNLV had the momentum, they had control of the game, you could feel that the Rebels had their confidence back which had been so sorely lacking in previous games.
From that point on, the game was back and forth as to who had the lead until about 6:00 remaining when UNLV was up 49-47. The Runnin' Rebels scored 5 points there to extend the lead to 7 and the Rams couldn't get the lead under 3 again for the rest of the game. UNLV had a couple more big three pointers from Oscar Bellfield to get the Rebels to 60 points and then free throw shooting took over from there.
This is a tough loss for Colorado State. The Rams had a big win in their grasp, but let the momentum and game slip away in the second half. As for UNLV, this win now means that they only have to beat Utah and Wyoming in order to get the MWC Tournament 3 seed plus they basically cement themselves in the NCAA Tournament, barring an upset from the bottomfeeders in the conference.
As far as Colorado State's tournament chances go, they would now have to beat BYU and SDSU as well as New Mexico in the first round in order to get an at-large bid. Two wins against Top 5 RPI teams on the road would give the Rams the quality wins they need in order to make it to the NCAA Tournament without having to win the MWC Tournament.
A Tweecap is when you have someone that tweets for an entire game and you put those tweets in order. I had the opportunity of being able to tweet during the entire game, so I will show you, in chronological order, my tweets and the ones of which i retweeted.
Tweecap:
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