Colorado State has hit their stride.
The Rams have run off four straight wins, taking home the Continental Tire Las Vegas Classic last week with their dominant performances over North Florida, CSU Bakersfield, Portland and Virginia Tech in the championship game.
Pierce Hornung has been magnificent as of late; his averages of 16.3 points and nine rebounds per game in the tournament were enough to win him Mountain West Conference Player of the Week. With center Colton Iverson struggling lately, Hornung has picked up the slack, and currently averages a double-double despite his 6'5” size.
Iverson, who started the season on fire, hasn't pulled down double digit rebounds since the team's loss to Colorado at the beginning of the month, and he looks to get back to those dominant ways against a smallish Grizzlies team this afternoon.
Also finding his groove for CSU has been Greg Smith, averaging 13.6 points and 5.8 rebounds per game over the last five contests. He's really matured this season under Larry Eustachy, passing the ball to teammates instead of pounding the rock and looking for his own shots. When the Rams play team basketball – moving the ball around to find open looks – their offense thrives.
Of course, Colorado State hangs its hat on rebounding, where their +14.6 rebounding margin is fourth-best in the entire nation. Conversely, Adams State is only a +2.3, though the two teams' numbers for total rebounds per game (42.0-40.3) are very similar.
The Grizzlies are a perfect 7-0 to start the season; scoring 81.9 points per on stellar shooting (46.4 percent) while playing high-energy defense to force opponents into 18.7 turnovers per game.
Even though Adams State is a D-II team, the Rams will have their hands full with another tough non-conference foe this afternoon.
CSU looks for their fifth straight win and their 20th straight at home, which is the fourth longest home winning streak in all of college basketball.
The game tips off at 2:30 p.m. MT at Moby Arena and won't be televised, so I'll see you there, Moby Maniacs.
Rich Kurtzman is a freelance journalist. You can follow Rich on twitter or facebook for all your CSU Rams news and opinion.
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