Kelly Lyell | The Coloradoan

Kevin Lytle

Timothy Hurst/The Coloradoan

Never mind that 3-4 start to the season.

CSU’s men’s basketball team took its game to another level Saturday to hand the University of Colorado its first loss of the season, 72-63 at Moby Arena.

Junior guards J.D. Paige and Prentiss Nixon kept the Rams under control on the offensive end, and Colorado State University did the rest with a dominant effort on the boards and some solid defense in the second half.

The Rams (4-4) looked nothing like the team that fell behind by big margins early in losses to Tulane, New Mexico State and Missouri State – all losses.

They looked like a team that could do some damage in the Mountain West while beating CU for the second straight season and seventh time in the past 13 meetings.

“We were really focused on this game, because we didn’t want to go down to 3-5, so it was a big win for us,” Paige said.

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Nixon made a 3-pointer just before halftime to give the Rams a 38-35 lead at the break, and the Rams took control in the second half. They led by as many as 17 points on a 3-pointer by Anthony Bonner with 7:40 remaining, then held off a furious comeback by CU (6-1) that included an 11-0 run in just 1:27.

Bonner’s 3 was the last field goal of the game for the Rams, who scored their final nine points at the free-throw line.

Kelly Lyell

Paige and Nixon scored 16 points apiece for the Rams. Senior forward Che Bob added 11 points, junior forward Deion James had nine points and 10 rebounds and sophomore forward Nico Carvacho nine points, eight rebounds and four blocks.

CSU out-rebounded CU 46-32.

Freshman guard McKinley Wright had 19 points and eight rebounds for CU, which shot just 33.3 percent (11 of 33) from the floor in the second half after shooting 46.4 percent (13 of 28) in the first 20 minutes.

“I think it does a lot for our confidence,” Nixon said. “CU was undefeated coming into this game and for us to be up by 17 at one point and just really shutting them out on the offensive end, it means a lot.”

Next up for CSU is a brutal road swing for games Tuesday at Arkansas and Friday at Oregon, an NCAA Final Four participant last spring. A trip that coach Larry Eustachy said Saturday has him feeling like Gen. George Custer preparing his cavalry for its last stand.

The Rams aren’t likely to win either of those games, and there’s a good chance they’ll take a losing record into the start of Mountain West play Dec. 27 at Boise State.

Despite this performance against CU, they’ve still got a lot to work on during the course of the season, Eustachy said.

They’re haven’t shown the kind of consistency they need to be a legitimate contender for a regular-season conference title. They’ll continue to lose some games they should probably win.

But they’ll probably win a few they ought to lose, too.

Knowing that their only path to a coveted berth in the NCAA tournament is to make a run through the conference tournament to earn an automatic berth, they’ve got 23 games between now and then to work out the kinks.

Even longer, based on Eustachy’s time frame.

“I think we’ve got tremendous room for growth,” he said. “… We (won) a very important game, but we still have our issues. We’ve still got things that we’ve got to blend other guys into.

“I’ve always said this is a 60-game season for me that goes into next year. And, we’ll be really, really good. I don’t know what we can do in league this year, but I know we can compete, and I know with (everyone) a year older what we can do next year and the year after that.”

Follow reporter Kelly Lyell at twitter.com/KellyLyell and facebook.com/KellyLyell.news and listen to him talk CSU sports at 11:35 a.m. Thursdays on KFKA radio (AM 1310).

Kelly Lyell

Next up: CSU at Arkansas, 6 p.m. Tuesday, Fayetteville, Ark.

Watch/listen: ESPN3.com/KARS (FM 102.9) and KRDO (AM 1340)

Twitter updates: @CSUMensBball

CSU 72, Colorado 63

Colorado (6-1) – Walton 3-3 0-0 6, Wright 2-9 1-2 5, Collier 4-10 1-3 10, King 3-13 2-3 9, Wright 7-15 1-3 19, Schwartz 0-1 0-0 0, Bey 2-3 2-2 6, Brown 1-4 0-0 3, Nikolic 2-2 0-0 5, Siewert 0-1 0-1 0. Totals 24-61 7-13 63.

Colorado State (4-4) – Bob 4-9 3-7 11, James 3-10 2-2 8, Carvacho 2-6 4-6 8, Nixon 5-14 2-2 16, Paige 5-9 5-5 16, Jenkins 2-5 3-5 8, Bonner 1-1 2-2 5. Totals 22-54 21-29 72.