Mountain West Championship: Nevada Wins Great Game Against Colorado State

The Nevada Wolf Pack are the Mountain West conference champions for the first time. They beat the Colorado State Rams in a fantastic game.

The game started the way the regular season match up ended. Nevada making everything and CSU making silly mistakes. The Rams defensive plan was to take Cameron Oliver and Marcus Marshall out of the equation. That part of the plan worked, except that the other members of the Wolf Pack picked up the slack.

Jordan Caroline made almost any shot he took in the first half. He finished the first half with 16 points on 7/8 shooting. D.J. Fenner also made some fantastic shots. The Rams were able to comeback a little, but the Wolf Pack shut that down. J.D. Paige did give the Rams a little momentum going into halftime with a buzzer beater shot.

Down 16 at one point, the Rams started to find their offense in the second half. Gian Clavell was the offense in the first half, in the second half he found a partner in crime in Prentiss Nixon. Nixon hit multiple 3 point shots. The Rams were able to tie the game at 51 but were never able to take the lead. They had multiple chances and couldn’t convert.

The turning point in the second half was a technical foul called on Larry Eustachy, down 54-51 Eustachy called a timeout after a foul and continued to come onto the court to yell at the refs. That tech allowed Nevada to extend the lead to 57-51 and they never looked back.

The Rams got close but couldn’t get over the hump. One factor was the huge foul disparity. Only called for 4 fouls in the first half, the Rams finished with 23 personal fouls. Nevada had 6 at the half and finished with 12. This was most likely Larry’s point of contention that got him a tech.

The Wolf Pack would finish out the game with free throws and win 79-71. Nevada now awaits Selection Sunday to find out who, when, and where they are going to play in the NCAA tournament.