AIR FORCE ACADEMY — It’s not a matter of if, but when this year’s Colorado State men’s basketball team cements itself as the best in program history.

With Saturday’s 89-86 win at Air Force, the Rams surpassed last year’s NCAA Tournament team’s total of 20 wins, and are now just two shy of matching the school’s all-time mark of 23 set by the 1988-89 squad.

With six regular-season games still to go, the 2012-13 team is already tied for fourth on the program’s all-time list for the most wins in a single season.

Guiding the Rams into such uncharted territory is first-year coach Larry Eustachy, who says his current squad is on the verge of becoming one of his all-time bests.

“I’ve had two great teams, and I’d like for them to be the third great team,” said Eustachy, who guided two of his Iowa State squads to the top-10 of the final AP poll, one of which made a run to the Elite Eight in 2000. “We’ve got a long ways to go to do it, but I think they’re willing to do it. We want to be special, and they all buy into it. They understand how to play.”

Improving to 8-2 in conference, the Rams kept pace in their chase for their first-ever Mountain West regular-season title. In fact, they haven’t started a league slate this well since the 1960-61 season as a member of the Mountain States Conference.

Though a conference title has been on the players’ minds ever since the end of last season, the senior-laden group says it’s not looking further ahead than Wednesday’s game at UNLV.

“You just have to focus on the next game. You’ve got to focus on the next play, things you can control. You can’t control who loses and who wins,” senior forward Pierce Hornung said. “All you can control is what you do. I think we’re a mature team that understands that.”

BALANCE, AGAIN — What’s made the Colorado State offense click all season — selfless play that leads to balanced scoring — was on display again Saturday.

All five Ram starters scored at least 13 points, providing all but four of the team’s 89 points — the most by the Rams against a Division I opponent this season. Their 53.8 percent shooting percentage also matched a season-best.

Said Air Force guard Michael Lyons of defending such a balanced attack: “It’s definitely not impossible, but it does make it a little bit difficult when everybody is a threat on the court.”

EIKMEIER BUSTS OUT — Entering the game mired in a four-game shooting slump, Wes Eikmeier looked very much like the all-conference guard he was for the Rams a season ago on Saturday. The senior scored 19 points, his highest total since Jan. 23, breaking out of an 8-for-43 (18.6 percent) stretch over the previous four games.

Eikmeier scored 13 of his points in the second half, making 3 of his 7 attempts from the 3-point line after halftime.

“Wes is an all-league guard and we needed him to play like that, and he did tonight,” Eustachy said. “We had a couple long talks, and I’ve got all the confidence in the world in him, whether he scores the basketball or not. … He hit some big ones. You can tell he’s not afraid.”

ADAPTABLE RAMS — From Saturday’s shootout to their grind-it-out victory over Wyoming two weeks ago, the Rams are showing an ability to adapt well to the pace of each particular contest.

But as offensively versatile as CSU is, players say their focus has been and always will be on defense and rebounding — regardless of how high a game’s point total goes.

“We know we can score, first of all. We don’t really even talk about offense, because we know with the guys that we have and how unselfish we are, that we can put the ball in the basket. So our focus is always defense and rebounding,” Dorian Green said. “We gave up 86 points tonight — that’s not something that we’re happy about, but the thing is we made enough plays to win, and you’ve got to do that on the road.”

Sean Star can be reached at 669-5050, ext. 512, sstar@reporter-herald.com or on Twitter @seanvstar