At the end of the day, a loss is a loss and each team must move on from it to be successful. CSU women’s basketball has lost two out of its last three games, which now raises the question if it can bounce back from a 65-64 upset against ninth-ranked San Jose State.
Tuesday night was not just a loss; it was a big setback on the Rams’ progress all season and their final stretch going into the Mountain West tournament. The setback is not only a concern as to where the MW champions’ focus is, but it also raises the issue if they are too comfortable with only one game left in the regular season.
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A reason this is bad for CSU is that the team crushed the Spartans 101-60 on its home court just two months ago, established a come-from-behind mentality and continuously fallen inside the arch, shooting just 14 of 47 against the Spartans Tuesday night.
In the last matchup between the two teams, CSU had 19 3-pointers against SJSU, where the offense was led by firecracker AJ Newton, who had nine 3-pointers alone. The team that took the floor Tuesday night forgot something, and it showed in the 37 fewer points they were able to score. Fundamentals were not there and the drive to rush the basket was lacking.
In the first half of the season, CSU came out strong early in the first half and used the second half as time to pull away from its opponents. Since its loss against Wyoming, where the Rams were down by double-digits heading into the second half, the Rams began to shift towards a team that is slowly deteriorating as each game goes on.
The concern heading into the final game for CSU Saturday against Wyoming is the chance the Rams will once again play on their heels and struggle to win their final game of the regular season. There is no worse of a way to head into the postseason tournament than on a low note of dropping three of the final four games.
If the Rams are unable to recover from these struggles, the question arises wether or not they will even make it to the championship game. This is not the time to show weakness outside of your home arena.
Collegian Assistant Sports Editor Haleigh Hamblin can be reached at sports@collegian.com and on Twitter @haleighhamblin.
