FORT COLLINS — An 80-57 rout of Fresno State on Saturday provided Colorado State a respite from what otherwise promises to be the most demanding stretch of the Rams’ schedule.

Ranked No. 24 in the USA Today coaches poll, Colorado State (19-3, 6-3 Mountain West) was coming off exhausting battles against San Diego State and Boise State, winning the former by six points and losing the latter by four. Looming ahead are matchups with Wyoming, UNLV, New Mexico and San Diego State again.

This was an opportunity for CSU to have some fun, relax a bit and take another step toward the goal of reaching the NCAA Tournament.

“Our team is coming together, and there is a lot of room for improvement, which is pretty cool,” CSU coach Larry Eustachy said.

An appreciative Moby Arena crowd of 7,043 watched Colorado State dominate from the opening tipoff. The Rams never trailed.

CSU took a 35-22 lead into halftime and was up by as many as 30 points in the second half. The Rams had allowed a halftime lead to disappear against Boise State and vowed not to let that happen this time.

J.J. Avila led the Rams with 17 points, and another senior forward, Stanton Kidd, contributed 13 as CSU substituted freely. Tiel Daniels, a 6-foot-7, 234-pound junior, grabbed 10 rebounds.

The Rams controlled the rebounding by a decisive 49-29 margin.

“That’s our game,” Daniels said. “Anytime we can beat up a team like that (on the boards), our coaches love it.”

Fresno State (10-12, 5-4) entered the game as one of the conference’s hottest teams by winning five of its last seven. But the Bulldogs couldn’t get much going against CSU’s tenacious defense.

The Rams made Fresno State’s best offensive threat, junior guard Marvelle Harris, work for each of his 16 points. CSU ran four different defenders at Harris, starting with the 6-7 Kidd on him, then giving 6-6 Joe De Ciman, 6-5 Daniel Bejarano and 6-4 Gian Clavell their turns.

The strategy worked. Harris hit just 3-for-9 from the field. He entered the game averaging 17.7 points, second in the league.

Fresno State shot 32.7 percent from the field.

“We contested his shots and kept him out of the paint,” Kidd said of Harris.