COLORADO SPRINGS — Two weeks after their first loss of the season dropped them out of the AP Top 25, the Colorado State Rams are slowly climbing back into consideration once again.
David Roddy fell one rebound shy of a double-double and the CSU men’s basketball team shut down Air Force to secure a regular-season series sweep of the Falcons with a 73-53 win Saturday at Clune Arena.
With their fourth straight win, the Rams moved to 15-1 (5-1 Mountain West) to begin the season — their best 16-game start in program history.
Isaiah Stevens and Roddy combined to hit 13 of 16 shots from the field to lead an efficient Rams offense. As a team, the Rams shot 57.4% overall, including 6-of-17 shooting from 3-point range.
Roddy finished with 14 points, nine rebounds, three assists and three steals in another solid all-around effort, while Stevens added 18 points and two assists on 8-for-10 shooting. John Tonje dropped in 15 points, and Isaiah Rivera had seven rebounds.
Air Force drew to within a point of the Rams at 16-15 with 6:41 left in the first half before CSU took control, closing out the half on a 15-2 run sparked by back-to-back 3-pointers from Roddy and Rivera.
The Falcons (9-8, 2-4), limited to 33.3% shooting (18 of 54), got as close as 33-22 two minutes into the second half, but Chandler Jacobs answered with a layup on the other end and the Rams pulled away from there.
Jake Heidbreder had 16 points for the Falcons. A.J. Walker added 13 points. Ethan Taylor had 10 points and six rebounds.
Colorado State entered Saturday ranked No. 31 in the NET rankings — a critical metric used by the NCAA Tournament selection committee to put together the at-large field.
The Rams will get a golden opportunity to improve upon that number over the next two weeks. First up are home games against Nevada (7 p.m. Tuesday) and UNLV (7 p.m. Friday) next week, followed by a visit to Wyoming (15-2, 4-0) on Jan. 31 and home rematch with San Diego State (10-3, 2-0), which beat CSU 79-49 earlier this month, on Feb. 4.
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