UNC men's hoops team prepares for CSU

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University of Northern Colorado men?s basketball coach Tad Boyle realizes his team is heading into a hornet?s nest.

After last year?s stunning 72-59 victory by the Bears against Colorado State University at the Butler-Hancock Sports Pavilion, Boyle knows the Rams will have revenge on their minds when the two team face off in the rematch 7 p.m. tonight at Moby Arena in Fort Collins.

?It (CSU) is a totally different team and we are a different team as well, so you can?t draw too many conclusions as far as last year?s results,? Boyle said. ?I think if anything, it will give CSU a little more venom in their fangs than anybody.?

Even with three starters back from the team that lost to UNC a year ago, the Rams (1-0) do have a new, more athletic and physical lineup that includes forward Andy Ogide, a 6-foot-9 sophomore transfer from the University of Mississippi. Ogide had to sit out last season due to the NCAA transfer rule.

Ogide led the team with 20 points and 14 rebounds in the Rams? season-opening 85-55 win against Montana, UNC?s Big Sky Conference rival.

?They beat Montana by 30 and that is hard to do anywhere,? Boyle said. ?They are a different team and a much improved team and there are some kids sitting out that are pretty darn good players.?

One thing that hasn?t changed for the Rams is the outstanding play of guard Marcus Walker, who was the second-leading scorer in the Mountain West Conference a season ago averaging 17.2 points per game.

Though Boyle said the Bears (0-1) will use a variety of players defensively to try to shut down Walker, he is likely to see a lot of UNC?s Robert Palacios, the 6-1 guard out of Caracas, Venezuela. He was one of the top defenders in the Big Sky last season.

?The great thing about Robert in the lineup is I can put Robert in the lineup against a guy that is 6-foot-9 or a guy that is 5-foot-9 and you know what you are going to get from him every night,? Boyle said. ?That is the luxury of having Robert Palacios in your lineup is you can look at who is hurting you on the other team and you just say, ?go sick ?em,? and he usually does it.?

Offensively, the Bears will be led by senior Jabril Banks. The 6-7 forward out of George Washington High School in Denver led the Bears in scoring (13.2) and rebounding (5.8) a season ago and had 10 points in the season-opening 66-64 loss to Oregon on Friday.

Boyle knows his team has some confidence coming off the loss to Oregon because the Bears didn?t play well with 20 turnover and only 35.5 percent shooting from the field, but still managed to come within a pair of missed free throws of tying the game in the final seconds.

?I think the kids have confidence themselves because we did not play well at Oregon and competed our tails off and were in the game at the end,? Boyle said.

 

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Rams basketball team not taking Bears lightly


Last year, the CSU men's basketball team lost to Northern Colorado for the first time in 21 years.


But revenge, Colorado State University coach Tim Miles and his players said Monday, isn't a rallying cry for the Rams (1-0) entering tonight's rematch with the Bears (0-1) at Moby Arena. It's one that will apply far too often following a 7-25 season last year in Miles' first season in Fort Collins.

"In terms of revenge, we've got plenty of opportunities to circle many different teams and this is just one of them," Miles said. "But at the same time, I view this as a rivalry game. We schedule them as equally as we do Wyoming, Colorado and Air Force, and that's a big thing. We give them a lot of respect."

If the Bears didn't earn a measure of respect with last year's 72-59 win over the Rams in Greeley, they certainly did with their performance Friday night in their season opener. UNC rallied from a 61-49 deficit with 6:30 remaining before falling at Oregon 66-64.

The Bears, third-year coach Tad Boyle said, competed and played hard but didn't play all that well, shooting just 35 percent and turning the ball over 20 times. But they gained tremendous confidence in one of college basketball's most hostile environments before 8,273 fans at MacArthur Court.

"We're certainly capable of playing well," Boyle said. "But we're still a work in progress, and I think that was evident Friday night."

Junior forward Jefferson Mason scored 15 points for the Bears, and senior forward Jabril Banks, one of two UNC players who played with CSU's Marcus Walker two years ago at Indians Hills Community College in Ottumwa, Iowa, added 10. UNC returns its frontcourt from last season and added two JC transfers in the backcourt.

"From watching the film of them playing Oregon, they're just a very aggressive team," said Walker, who had 17 points for CSU Friday night in an 85-55 win over Montana. "They're very physical, and they go to the rebound, so we've just got to do a good job matching their intensity."

That's what the Rams were unable to do last year, CSU point guard Willis Gardner said. UNC, playing more aggressively than the taller Rams, outrebounded CSU 43-25, including a 19-11 edge on the offensive end.

"We've got to match their fire with our fire," Gardner said. "They're going to hit us, and we've got to hit them back. Last year, they made the first hit, and that was it. We didn't fight back."

CSU has four starters back, but one of them now comes off the bench behind one of the two new players in the lineup - Andy Ogide, a 6-foot-9 sophomore transfer from Mississippi who had 20 points and 14 rebounds Friday in his CSU debut, and JC transfer Harvey Perry. CSU shot 52 percent from the floor and outrebounded Montana 40-33.

A good start, Miles said. But only a start.

"We need to get better at everything," he said. "We don't defend well enough, We don't rebound nearly well enough. We don't execute on offense well enough. We've got a long way to go to be a good team."