J.D. Paige rallies Colorado State University basketball team past Montana State

Kevin Lytle | The Coloradoan

J.D. Paige walked the court, waving the crowd on for encouragement.

Up one sideline, across to the other as the Moby Arena fans screamed their approval.

The senior CSU basketball player refused to let this game get away, and he was going to enjoy the win with his fans.

Poor shooting, foul trouble and a red-hot Montana State shooter had the Rams backed into a corner Wednesday night.

Then Paige took over.

The visiting Bobcats led by five with less than eight minutes left, but Paige and fellow veterans Anthony Masinton-Bonner and Nico Carvacho rallied the Rams for an 81-77 win.

"I think this was great for us," first-year coach Niko Medved said as CSU moved to 3-0. "I think this was a lot better than the first two games because this is how you grow; this is how you get better."

Key stretch of the game

Montana State (1-3) guard Tyler Hall had a string of three 3-pointers in a row and pushed the Bobcats to a 65-61 lead with just under eight minutes left.

Paige was then designated as the Hall-stopper. He buckled down on Hall, who had hit 10 3-pointers to that point, and didn’t let him hit another. Hall finished with 30 points.

At the same time, Paige attacked the rim to help lead an offense back to life after it had misfired most of the night: a layup to cut the deficit to two, later a conventional three-point play and then a jumper to tie the game at 71 with under two minutes left.

Then it was Masinton-Bonner’s chance to play a key role. He rolled an ankle late in the first half and hobbled through the second half. With 1:23 left in the game, Adam Thistlewood found him for a wide-open 3-pointer.

Bucket. The Rams never let Montana State closer than within three after that.

“The funny thing is, before that he came up to me and said, ‘Next open 3, I’m knocking it down.’ I said, ‘I know,’ and that’s what he did,” Carvacho said.

Niko Medved on close win over Montana State: I thought this was great for us After two blowout wins, the CSU basketball team moved to 3-0 with an 81-77 comeback win over Montana State on Wednesday.

Outside shooting woes

After scoring 100 and 92 points in blowout wins in the first two games of the season, CSU’s offense struggled against Montana State.

The Rams took 30 3-pointers and hit just six of them, that number being saved by a 4-for-6 effort from long range for Lorenzo Jenkins.

“I thought, especially early in the game, we settled for too many jumpers,” Medved said. “We talked about it in the first two timeouts … I don’t think we executed very well tonight.”

Double trouble

Another game, another double-double for Carvacho.

The 6-foot-11 forward admitted frustration with the officials and battled foul trouble, but for the third time in as many games, he notched a double-double. He was second on the team with 15 points and had a game-high 13 rebounds. He’s well on his way to blowing past his 11 total double-doubles last season.

Looking to the future

CSU signed three players with national letters of intent on Wednesday in 5-foot-11 point guard Isaiah Stevens, 6-foot-5 forward David Roddy and 6-foot-10 forward James Moors. Roddy and Stevens are three-star recruits, according to Rivals.com, and Moors is a two-star.

Jihaun Westbrook, a 6-5 forward from Phelan, California, decommitted from CSU on Wednesday. Westbrook, rated as a two-star recruit, had verbally committed to CSU in late August.

Niko Medved excited about his first CSU basketball signing clas Niko Medved signed three players on Wednesday in his first signing class as CSU basketball coach.

Follow sports reporter Kevin Lytle at twitter.com/Kevin_Lytle and at facebook.com/KevinSLytle.

CSU 81, Montana State 77

Montana State 32 45 — 77

Colorado State 34 47 — 81

Montana State (1-3) — Hall 30, Frey 17, Ricketts 12, Blevins 7, Kirby 7, Neumann 2, Nikkarinen 2.

CSU (3-0) — Paige 23, Carvacho 15, Masinton-Bonner 14, Jenkins 12, Moore 11, Thistlewood 5, Ryan 1.

Attendance — 2,243

Next up — CSU vs. Louisiana, at Fort Myers, Florida, 3 p.m. Monday.