Colorado State men’s basketball overcame a 10-point second-half deficit to defeat Wyoming 79-68 on Saturday afternoon at Moby Arena in Fort Collins.
CSU avenged a 68-57 loss to Wyoming in Laramie on Jan. 31 by using a 10-0 run late in the second half to overtake the Cowboys and cruise down the final stretch for its third win in a row.
With the win, the Rams improved to 15-10 overall and 6-8 in the Mountain West Conference. It was the last Mountain West Conference matchup between the teams in their long-running Border War rivalry, as the Rams will play in the Pac-12 beginning next season.
“The Border War is awesome,” CSU head coach Ali Farokhmanesh said. “Awesome environment. Awesome atmosphere. Moby was rocking tonight and I thought our guys fed off that. I thought that sparked our run.”
CSU trailed 40-37 at halftime but scored the first four points of the second half to go ahead 41-40. However, the Cowboys answered with a 13-2 run to go ahead 53-43 with 15:06 left in the game.
Wyoming went ahead by 10 again at 55-45 before CSU made its run. The Rams finally tied the game at 64 after two free throws by Jase Butler with 5:19 left, and then went ahead 66-64 on a layup by Muniz nine seconds later. They never trailed again.
The Rams spent the final five minutes extending their lead, eventually going up by 11 after two free throws by Rashaan Mbemba with 18 seconds remaining. That ended up being the final margin of victory for CSU.
Butler led the Rams with a career-high 18 points. Muniz added 15 and Mbemba 14. Brandon Rechsteiner and Kyle Jorgensen had scored 11. CSU shot 62% from the field while holding the Cowboys to 41%.
“I feel like the past few games I hadn’t been playing as well as I could have on offense,” Butler said. “I just kind of took what they gave me. They kind of forced us to drive, so I just tried to get the ball to the rim and make plays.”
CSU outrebounded Wyoming 30-27, with Mbemba leading the Rams with eight. Carey Booth had six blocks in the contest for CSU.
The Rams led by as many as six early in the first half and maintained a lead until the Cowboys tied the game at 25 with 7:43 left before halftime. Wyoming led by as many as nine before the Rams were able to whittle the Cowboys’ lead down to three at the break.
CSU will be back on the road Wednesday at UNLV. Tipoff against the Rebels and the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas is scheduled for 9 p.m.
