Hoops improves, but falls short

How do you measure success?

Is it by how far you’ve come? Or how you fell short of your goals?

The CSU men’s basketball team went 19-13 on the season, and finished fourth in the Mountain West Conference before losing in the first-round of the MWC tournament and again in the first game of the National Invitational Tournament.

Coach Tim Miles and his players said all season long that their goal was to “make the NCAA tournament and win when we get there.”

Based on that, the season was a failure. But when you consider that just a couple of years ago, CSU basketball went winless in 16 conference games, it’s not hard to look at being in contention for a NCAA tournament spot as a success.

“I’m proud of our kids. We’ve brought our program a long way,” Miles said. “We’re going to continue to try and get better.”

Not only did this Ram team show great improvement from years past, they also put a stamp on being one of the more successful teams in program history.

The 19-win plateau was reached for only the 10th time in program history, the first since the 2002-03 team which went to the NCAA tournament. The Rams also set a program record for MWC victories with nine.

Perhaps the greatest signal of growth for CSU basketball came in week 15 of the Associated Press top-25 poll when the Rams received five votes, marking the third consecutive week the team received votes.

CSU also enjoyed two sellout crowds at Moby during the season, the first time since 1990 the Rams had two sellouts in a season.

Along the way, notable high points included a six game win streak early in the season. Part of the winning streak was a championship in Cancun Governor’s Cup.
But late in the season, CSU faltered.

After looking like they were going to finish third in the conference and earn an at-large berth in the NCAA tournament, the Rams faded down the stretch, losing six of their last seven games.

The late fade kept CSU out of the NCAA tournament and gave them a first-round NIT game at Moby Arena against Fairfield University.

But that didn’t go as planned, either. The Rams lost their first-round game 62-60.

“I’m very proud of our program. I’m very proud of our kids. We have made steps forward,” Miles said. “But I don’t think anybody thinks that ending the way we ended is good enough. There’s not one person associated with our program that thinks the way it went down is good enough. Nineteen wins is not enough. The NIT one and out is not good enough.”

The Rams will now try to build off of the season. But it won’t be easy.
CSU will lose four seniors to graduation, Andre McFarland, Adam Nigon, Andy Ogide, and Travis Franklin.

Nigon, Ogide and Franklin are all starters and account for about 35 points per game. Ogide in particular will be tough to replace. He set down a mark as the best big man at CSU since current New Orleans Hornet Jason Smith and was named first-team all-MWC this season.

Of the players currently on the roster, the only two players listed as taller than 6-6 are 7-foot center Trevor Williams and 6-10 center Chad Calcaterra. Neither of them has played a minute of college basketball. Williams will be a redshirt sophomore next year, while Calcaterra will be a redshirt freshman.

The Rams success will likely hinge on the play of a slew of to-be-juniors. Dorian Green, Wes Eikmeier, Jesse Carr, Pierce Hornung and Greg Smith all played significant minutes this season. Now they have to become the leaders of the program. And they are ready to do what’s necessary to reach the top.

“I know myself, I’m going to work really hard (in the offseason). I feel like we left a bunch of games out there,” Smith said. “There’s a lot of things that we all as a team need to work on, there should be a lot of incentives that we don’t want to leave our seniors out like this. We want to hit our goals.”