Under the bright lights of the Rocky Mountain Showdown, Colorado State stumbled.

CSU men’s basketball fell 72-55 against Colorado Saturday in a matchup where the Rams never had control or momentum of any sorts. Through the commitment of unnecessary turnovers and the inability for shots to fall, the Rams were unable to complete their goal of beating CU at the CU Events Center for the first time.

Jalen Lake led the scoring for the Rams with 18 points in his 33 minutes of action, but not many other contributions were given from CSU.

Nique Clifford, who played for CU for three seasons, made his first return back to Boulder since transferring following the 2022-23 season. With game-long boos reigning in from the crowd as he touched the ball, Clifford was unable to muster the revenge game he hoped for.

Clifford finished with 10 points — a new season-low — shooting 4-of-15 from the field, including 2-of-6 from beyond the arc. The Buffaloes played amazing defense on him all night, not letting Clifford get to the free throw line a single time and forcing two turnovers out of him.

“I guess I’ll use the word ‘disappointing’ — that would be an understatement,” coach Niko Medved said. “I really thought we were going to play well here tonight. I thought we were in a pretty good place. our preparation was very good, and our mindset coming in here was good — but quickly things snowballed, and you could see very quickly we were not able to execute on either end of the floor.”

There was a lid on the rim for whichever basket the Rams were shooting on tonight, as they went ice cold in both halves to ultimately finish the game with a 25.9% 3-point percentage, and 31.3% from the field overall — a new season-low.

“I think we just have to stay together,” Lake said. “We got to have better starts, got to be a lot more tougher in certain areas, pulling guys together, being more connected.”

A dominating aspect was the size advantage that the Buffaloes had. CU constantly rotated big men all night, including 6-foot-10 Elijah Malone, 6-foot-8 Assane Diop, as well as 6-foot-11 Bangot Dak.

Dak, a sophomore, had a career night from 18 minutes off the bench pouring in 16 points — double his former career-high — while Malone had 10 points all coming in the first half.

“We were trying to keep the ball out of Malone’s hands, and they got two high-lows over the top,” Medved said. “We did adjust, and it was better that way after that, but even those two baskets — we gave up a bunch of other easy ones too. I wasn’t surprised at all, and it got away from us quickly, and we were not able in that first half to regroup.”

CSU won the second half 34-29, but the damage had already been done by the beginning of that half of play. The Buffaloes carried a 43-21 lead into the break, and the Rams had put on a performance unlike themselves in the first 20 minutes.

CSU had nine field goals in the first half and, surprisingly enough, only recorded one assist in an entire half of play. Cultivating a season-low 21 points in one half, the Rams dug themselves quite a hole early on.

“I think they came out physical in the beginning,” Lake said. “I think, also, we just kind of got out of character. I think we only had seven assists on the night, so we just got to have a character — we didn’t play Rams basketball. We didn’t share the ball (well) enough, and we didn’t flow like how we usually do.”

The Rams could barely buy a bucket all night and didn’t get many contributions elsewhere, but multiple aspects contributed to the large loss. Unnecessary turnovers, slow defensive rotations and the lack of a hunger to attack all piloted the Rams to a blowing defeat.

CU led the way in points in the paint 36-20, outrebounded the Rams by 11 and won the bench points battle 28-13 after CSU had been getting steady efforts from the bench all year long.

“We didn’t shoot the ball well, but those things happen,” Medved said. “But had we played better defense, and we played sounder, and we drove to pass and we took better shots over the course of the game — you hang in there. … When you let poor shooting compound itself, and then you start making defensive errors, you start taking worse shots — and that’s what we did in the first half.”

With the loss, CSU drops to 5-4 on the young season and begin their road adventures in the losing column; this being their first away game of the year.

The Rams will take off a week for finals and then hit the road to take on Virginia Commonwealth Dec. 14 at 5:30 in Henderson, Nevada.

Reach Devin Imsirpasic at sports@collegian.com or on Twitter at @DImsirpasic.