{"id":216010,"date":"2026-03-12T05:24:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T05:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/216010\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T05:24:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T05:24:07","slug":"colorado-state-survives-against-fresno-state-advances-to-mountain-west-tournament-quarterfinals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/216010\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado State survives against Fresno State, advances to Mountain West tournament quarterfinals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Colorado State\u2019s title defense at the Mountain West tournament rolls on to the quarterfinals.<\/p>\n

The No. 7 seed Rams held on for a 67-63 win over No. 10 seed Fresno State on Wednesday night at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas to advance to play No. 2 seed San Diego State on Thursday (7 p.m. CBS Sports Network).<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew it was going to be tough,\u201d Rams coach Ali Farokhmanesh said. \u201cI think the first games are always the hardest. It takes a minute to adjust
to the atmosphere, to everything that\u2019s going on, the pageantry of being in a tournament. It took us a little bit of time, but I think this team, I think it showed its growth throughout the year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t win this game in November, because this was a
defensive game to start.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jase Butler\u2019s big second half led the way for CSU, which trailed by as many as eight points early in the final 20 minutes. The sophomore guard scored 17 of his team-high 20 points in the second half, making a season-high six 3-pointers in the game as a whole, to go with nine rebounds and two assists.<\/p>\n

\"\"Colorado State guards Jase Butler (4) and Brandon Rechsteiner (2) celebrate after a win over Fresno State in the first round of the Mountain West tournament on Wednesday at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas. (Chris Swann\/MW Photos)<\/p>\n

Butler\u2019s seventh and final 3-pointer of the night was his biggest, as it broke a 61-61 tie with 2:23 left to play.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, I got a lot of my 3s off kickouts from offensive rebounds from my teammates,\u201d Butler said. \u201cWe do a lot of drills in practice just trying respace and get open, and my teammates found me. Credit to them. I just had the confidence to make the open shot.\u201d<\/p>\n

CSU trailed 14-7 early and didn\u2019t reach double figures as a team until there were a little over nine minutes left in the first half.<\/p>\n

The Rams shot just 31% from the field in the first half as a team, but buckled down defensively and kept the game within reach at a 32-27 deficit heading into the locker room.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we didn\u2019t play the way we did defensively, we\u2019re down by 20 at halftime back in November,\u201d Farokhmanesh said. \u201cSo for us to guard the way we did in the first half to give ourselves a chance and then settle into the game, that\u2019s what I was most impressed with.\u201d<\/p>\n

Junior forward Carey Booth was the only other Rams player in double figures, scoring 18 points and grabbing six rebounds.<\/p>\n

Former Air Force standout Jake Heidbreder had a game-high 26 points for Fresno State, which led for more than 25 minutes. Freshman forward DeShawn Gory had a double-double with 12 points and 10 rebounds.<\/p>\n

The Rams and Bulldogs split the regular-season meetings with the home team winning both games. CSU needed a similar comeback last month at Moby Arena on the way to a 74-70 victory.<\/p>\n

This was just the second win this season for the Rams in a game in which they scored fewer than 69 points. They were previously 1-7 in such games.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the 21st win overall for CSU in Farokhmanesh\u2019s first season and their fourth straight at the conference tournament. The Rams are playing in the Mountain West tournament for the final time as they and four other programs will depart for the new-look Pac-12 this summer.<\/p>\n

One of them, San Diego State, awaits with a spot in the semifinals on the line.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know our guys are looking forward to it, it\u2019s going to be an absolute challenge,\u201d Farokhmanesh said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be a dogfight, and I know San Diego State is going to have a ton of fans here, so it will be a packed building tomorrow night at 6 p.m. (Pacific time).\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Colorado State\u2019s title defense at the Mountain West tournament rolls on to the quarterfinals. The No. 7 seed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":216011,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":{"0":"post-216010","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fresno","8":"tag-fresno","9":"tag-fresno-headlines","10":"tag-fresno-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216010\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}