Colorado State 91 – Utah State 64 (Women)

One of the great joys as a fan is watching a team develop over the course of the season.  Sometimes teams never get better. Sometimes teams improve a little.

And then there’s the Colorado State Women of 2015-16.

Those of us who follow this team knew they could be pretty salty this season.  There is no way that anyone saw 20 in a row good, breaking the all-time school record for consecutive wins.  

But that is where things stand after the Rams ran roughshod over a decent middle-of-the-pack quad from Utah State.

The visiting Aggies scored the first basket of the game and it took a minute for the Rams to even the score.  The Rams fell behind 7-6 after a three-ball by Funda Nakkasoglu (Funda from Down Unda), the All-Everything point guard from Logan.  

And then the Rams’ Jamie Patrick happened.

The 5’10” senior wing from Hutchinson, KS came into the game as the Rams leading scorer and leading the MWC in shooting from the perimeter.  In a previous meeting at Utah State, Patrick had scored 20 including 6-11 from beyond the arc.

On an early possession, Utah State had run a second defender at Patrick on the perimter as she caught a pass. But four minutes into the game, CSU’s Ellen Nystrom found Patrick alone on the wing and she drilled one home to give the Rams a 9-7 lead.  An Emilie Hesseldal steal, a Nystrom pass to Patrick in the corner, another three and the Rams had surged in from 12-7. Another steal, this one by Keyora Wharry, followed by a pass to Patrick from Nystrom for another 3-ball and the lead expanded to 15-7 and the Ramns were off and running wild.

Patrick finished the first quarter with 16 points, closing it out with another 3-ball to push the lead to 32-15.

It was Patrick making the shots but it was an incredibly well-organized team offense that surgically attacked Utah State’s 2-3 with speed and precision.  Nystrom ran the show from the point, Patrick from the wing. Wharry parked in the middle of the zone, Elie Gustavsson both inside and out, and Emile Hesseldal worked along the baseline.  Center Alana Arias came off the bench and established herself in the short corner. The 32 points was impressive.  The nearly 70% that the Rams had shot was sublime.

For their part, Utah State had shot nearly 60% in that first quarter. But defensive pressure by the Rams had forced 8 turnovers which limited the number of opportunities for the Aggies.

The second quarter was very much a continuation of the first as the Rams defended, rebounded, passed, and shot their way to a 52-31 halftime lead.

The play of the night came off a Nystrom steal.    The fabulous Swede had a chance to try to race full court to score a breakaway layup.  She chose a different path.  She calmly dribbled the ball up the right wing all the time looking for Patrick. Nystrom spotted her on the left wing and rifled a crosscourt pass and Patrick delivered the bomb.  Great things happen when a team’s best player is about we, not me.

Arias delivered another huge blow at the 3:00 mark with a step-through in the paint and left-handed finish.  It would not be proper to call it a Euro-step because Arias is from Brazil.  For descriptive purposes, I think Samba step is more appropriate.

Patrick finished the half with 23 points including 6-11 from beyond the arc.  Nystrom finished the half with 8 points and 9 assists.  Arias had 12 points and 4 rebounds.

The third quarter opened with an early Patrick three-ball but was much more about sluggish play.  The fourth quarter was all about attacking the rim as Nystrom, Wharry, Gustavsson, and Arias found their way to the rim against the tiring Aggies. And then it was the Callie Kaiser show in the final minutes after the starters had been sent to the bench.  The freshman from Broomfield nailed a pair of three-balls and delivered three the hard way on a tough reverse layup that she spun off the glass.

It’s never about the individual stats with this team.

It’s about 23-1 for the season.  It’s about 13-0 in conference. And it’s about 20 in a row, breaking the all-time record set in 1998-099 by a squad led by the team’s fairy godmother, Becky Hammon.  Another lap completed, another hurdle successfully negotiated.  Next hurdle – a trip to Laramie for the return game with rival Wyoming.

  
More thoughts…

In the last six games, the Rams have won by 21, 16, 27, 32, 31, and 27.  You would be hard-pressed to find a team this side of UCONN winning by as much as this team is.  But it’s not just the winning or the scoring margin.  It’s the style of play on both ends of the floor.  There are players on other teams, like Funda from Down Unda (she finished with 20), who might score more points, grab more rebounds, deliver more assists.  But there isn’t one that I would take over anyone in CSU’s top 8.  I know it sounds crazy.  But basketball is about chemistry, about turning down a good shot to get a teammate a better shot, about making the person next to you better with effort and skill.  Coach Ryun Williams and staff have done an extraordinary job of building it and the players continue to make it possible by staying committed to getting better.   All of them.

Coloradoan beat writer Kevin Lytle posed a question on Twitter asking what the biggest moment to date was this season.  The Ellen Nystrom game-winner against CU came up right away. But I responded that it was the Emilie Hesseldal jumper in the final minute to complete a 80-78 come-from-behind road win over San Jose State.  Hesseldal does all the dirty work on both ends of the floor.  She sets screens, gets tough rebounds, defends bigger players in the post, initiates the offense by bringing the ball up court.  When she’s on the floor she’s usually the fifth scoring option.  It doesn’t matter that she can shoot. It’s just how this team works.  When your fifth scoring option can calmly make a shot fake, take one dribble, and nail an 18′ jumper with the game on the line, that speaks volumes.  The Nystrom shot was fantastic. The Hesseldal game winner was downright transformational.