Nique Clifford kept receipts.
The Colorado State star made sure everyone knew he knew how badly underrated his team was on Saturday when it won the Mountain West Conference tournament after it was rated seventh in the league’s preseason poll.
Clifford and the 12th-seeded Rams have a chance to prove more skeptics wrong on Friday in Seattle when they take on fifth-seeded Memphis in a first-round West Region game of the NCAA Tournament.
“They picked us seventh. That’s something we took part in and we wanted to prove everyone wrong,” Clifford said. “It feels super sweet to be able to do so.”
Colorado State (25-9) was 5-5 in mid-December and it’s now the owner of a 10-game winning streak, all by at least eight points. The Rams are 15-2 over the past 17 games and have found their sweet spot.
Clifford is at the center of it all. The 6-foot-6 fifth-year senior is averaging a career-high 19.0 points, 9.7 rebounds and 4.4 assists while canning 50.7 percent of his shots. When the Rams blew out Boise State 69-56 to punch their NCAA ticket, Clifford pumped in a game-high 24 points.
Colorado State also gets 11.1 ppg from Jalen Lake and 10.2 from Kyan Evans. The Rams also possess solid depth, bringing guys off the bench like Bowen Born and Ethan Morton, who were solid contributors at their previous stops, Northern Iowa and Purdue, respectively.
In short, the Rams appear to be a difficult out for the Tigers (29-5), who swept the American Athletic Conference regular-season and tournament titles. They swallowed up the league’s only NCAA bid by stopping UAB 84-72 on Sunday in the tourney championship game.
Against the Blazers, the 1-2 punch of PJ Haggerty and Dain Dainja did most of the heavy lifting as has been the case over the past month. Haggerty scored 23 points while Dainja added 22 to go along with 12 rebounds. On the season, Haggerty is averaging 21.8 ppg and Dainja is at 14.4, plus 7.2 rebounds.
However, Memphis could be short-handed with guards Tyrese Hunter (foot) and Dante Harris (ankle) possibly on the shelf for NCAA opener. Hunter is the team’s third-leading scorer at 13.7 ppg, and he also has considerable NCAA tourney experience from his previous stops, Texas and Iowa State.
“I’m praying for good ankles and good feet, good everything right now,” Tigers coach Penny Hardaway said Tuesday. “Good knees. That’s just the honest truth.”
Hunter was injured in the Tigers’ Saturday semifinal win over Tulane and has been wearing a walking boot. Hardaway went with Baraka Okojie on Sunday, and the sophomore dished out four assists in 28 minutes, although he also had four turnovers.
The Colorado State-Memphis winner advances to a second-round matchup on Sunday against either No. 13 Grand Canyon or No. 4 Maryland.
