NORMAN, OK – Not once did Colorado State women’s basketball think it couldn’t win.
That mentality is what had led the Rams into the Big Dance in the first place. Always fighting to the final buzzer, making the best of whatever tough situation they’re in and competing with the best of the Mountain West.
Despite a full 40-minute game — in which No. 12 CSU exemplified all they stand for, giving No. 5 Michigan State a run for its money — the Rams could not come out on top. CSU fell 65-62 in the round of 64 at the Lloyd Noble Center in its second NCAA Tournament appearance under coach Ryun Williams.
It’s never easy losing a game which ends your season, especially for seniors. There are no moral victories in sports, as they say.
However, the Rams demonstrated exactly what CSU basketball is on the biggest stage.
“There’s not one CSU Ram around the country, wherever they were watching, that isn’t bursting with pride,” Williams said. “And nobody’s bursting with more pride than me. We’ve got a locker room that’s hurting, and they hurt because they care, and because they expect to win. They don’t look at a 12-5 (seed matchup), they don’t look at it that way.”
The evening started with the Rams shocking the Spartans by coming out explosive and looking to set the tone, opening up a 9-3 lead in the first five minutes of the game following two early Hannah Ronsiek jumpers and some aggressive lane drives from Brooke Carlson.
After the run to start the game, neither team led by more than six points the entirety of the night, and the teams were throwing punches back and forth trying to keep their seasons alive.
“(It was) just a March Madness basketball game, two teams really battling out there,” Williams said. “We put ourselves in a position to win. Our team was amazing tonight, and (MSU) just made a few more plays at the end of the day.”
The Spartans ended up winning the first quarter 16-13 by forcing four Ram turnovers and using their size in the paint to score at will — a point that the team emphasized the remainder of the game to stay on top.
However, in the second quarter, the Rams started to take advantage of the MSU shooting woes. The Spartans were just 1-of-14 from the three-point line in the first half despite getting open looks, and CSU saw that as a pristine opportunity to build a bit of a lead.
The Rams shut down Kennedy Blair, the Spartans’ do-it-all guard, holding her to 0-of-4 shooting from the field in the second. It was the team’s leading scorer Grace VanSlooten who put up eight points in the quarter, but CSU shut down everyone besides her.
The teams continued exchanging buckets in the second, and the Rams found a rhythm getting to the shots they like, shooting 50% from the field in the quarter and taking a two point lead into the half.
“I think our defense was amazing tonight,” Carlson said. “We were really connected, we were staying together, we were taking away a lot. So that just feeds into the offensive end, getting stops, getting rebounds, being able to push it.”
The Spartans were eager to make a strong push coming out of the half with the thought of being upset on their mind, but CSU continued to weather the storm. Anytime the Spartans started to find their spots and get easy paint points, the Rams would respond with buckets of their own.
Kloe Froebe really kept the Rams afloat in the third, with eight points in the period all exclusively from being physical attacking the rim for layups, or getting fouled in the act of doing so giving her free throws. The Rams held a five-point lead near the end of the third, but that’s when Blair came alive.
The redshirt sophomore Spartan had a perfect couple of possessions in the final minutes of the third, with two blocks on Carlson and Froebe on ensuing defensive possessions to go along with two free throws and a triple of her own — single-handedly tying the game up at the end of the third.
CSU’s individual scoring outputs around the roster had been fairly spread out through three quarters, and nobody had individually come on to truly try and will the team to victory. It was an all-around effort.
Until Carlson took matters into her own hands.
Carlson scored 13 of her career-high 26 points in the fourth quarter — using her speed to blow past defenders for easy layups and also hitting two big-time threes. Carlson had all but two of 15 fourth-quarter Ram points and took on the full load of a star trying to will her team to a classic March Madness upset.
“I feel like I just wanted to win; we wanted to get the job done,” Carlson said. “I just was playing what the defense was giving me. My teammates were finding me in those positions, so it was just taking what I got in that moment.”
Same as the prior three quarters, the two squads went back and forth in the fourth exchanging baskets. The main difference was when the Spartans started taking the easiest shots they could get, which was using their size near the rim.
VanSlooten and Blair had nine combined points in the quarter, all of which came in the paint or off of offensive rebounds. The Rams never ran out of gas, but they didn’t quite have the extra push in the dwindling minutes to complete the upset. The duo of VanSlooten and Blair finished with 18 points each in the contest, finding their rhythms more and more as the game went on.
“I think (CSU) was just a really scrappy team,” VanSlooten said. “I think they came out and punched us first, and it took us a while to get back on our feet. … Once we decided to guard and decided we wanted it more than them, that’s when the game turned.”
The Spartans stopped testing their luck from beyond the arc in the fourth after shooting a lowly 3-of-20 from three in the first three quarters. Once the offensive gameplan switched to cater more towards VanSlooten and Blair’s style of getting to the rim, the game turned in MSU’s favor.
CSU trailed by six with 42 seconds remaining, and coming out of a timeout where they needed to score to have any chance of a comeback, Carlson immediately hit a catch-and-shoot three off the inbound with 39 seconds left, giving the Rams the opportunity to play a full defensive possession without intentionally fouling.
The huge shot from Carlson worked perfectly, as CSU got the stop they needed on the following possession and had seven seconds to go down the court and get a three to tie the game.
Williams knew who he wanted taking that final shot: the senior guard Hannah Ronsiek. A play was drawn up for her to get a catch-and-shoot three from the corner — her sweet spot.
Madelyn Bragg threw a perfect lob pass to the corner from the left block, and Ronsiek got a solid look at her shot, but it went too long and the Rams’ season ended there.
“I know all of the Rams here and back home believed in us, but we were definitely an underdog,” Ronsiek said. “I think we went out and we showed that we can compete with these teams on any given night. I’m just super proud of our basketball team, the way we played tonight and throughout the season.”
As CSU now exits their 2025-26 campaign with a MW title and a near-upset win in the Big Dance, the program has lots of change to prepare for, but also many positives to look forward to — including what looked like Carlson’s true breakout performance.
“Yeah, Brooke is a bulldog,” Williams said. “That young lady, she’s a rockstar. We really challenged Brooke from probably the second half of the season on to just get to a different level, and she has really done that. … I’m glad the basketball world got to see Brooke, because she’s just getting started. Trust me, that young lady is just getting started.”
All the Rams can do after a performance like this is be proud of how they performed and how this program has put on for CSU on the biggest stage.
“Colorado State basketball — it’s a big deal,” Williams said. “And this group, all year long, last year, I mean we play really good basketball. … When it’s on the line, you saw what being a CSU Ram was all about.”
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Reach Devin Imsirpasic at sports@collegian.com or on social media @DImsirpasic.
