Kyan Evans picked a good time for the best game of his young college career.
Colorado State’s sophomore guard took and seemingly hit every big shot the 12th-seeded Rams needed in a 78-70 win over No. 5 seed Memphis on Friday as the NCAA men’s basketball tournament returned to Seattle.
“Whatever Kyan was feeling tonight, I just want to feel that one time. Because I haven’t felt like that,” Colorado State coach Niko Medved said.
The first NCAA men’s tourney game in the city in a decade featured an upset based on the seeds but not based on the betting public as Colorado State was slightly favored. But it sent the champions of the Mountain West Conference tournament into the second round of the NCAAs for the first time in 2013 with just the sixth tournament win in school history.
Evans finished with a career-best 23 points and was the star making up for a day where potential future NBA first-rounder Nique Clifford struggled to score but still contributed in other ways for the Rams. Evans hit six three-pointers after never making more than four in a game. The only time he reached the 20-point mark this season was a few weeks ago in a win over Air Force.
Evans finished made 7 of 11 shots and had four assists. But contributions came throughout the lineup. Jalen Lake added 14 points and Jaylen Crocker-Johnson scored 12.
Clifford finished with 14 points eight rebounds and six assists despite shooting only 3 of 13.
“They did a good job on me tonight, I didn’t have my greatest game, but I’ll adjust and be ready for the next game,” Clifford said. “But I’m just happy to get this win any way we can. My teammates stepped up big time.”
The Rams won a First Four game last year over Virginia, but the last time they won a game in the round of 64 came 12 years ago as a No. 8 seed taking down No. 9 seed Missouri before losing to No. 1 Louisville in the round of 32. The only other time Colorado State has advanced to the second round in the current format of the tournament came in 1989.
They’ll have a chance at their first Sweet Sixteen in more than 50 years on Sunday against facing either Maryland or Grand Canyon.
“What’s great about this team, we just keep getting better. We’re playing better these last three weeks than we were the three weeks before that. That’s what you want to see,” Medved said.
Most of the attention was on the stars of each team. PJ Haggerty was a scoring sensation for Memphis most of the season, including a 42-point game in the American Athletic Conference tournament. Clifford is projected to be a late first-round pick in this summer’s NBA draft and was an all-Mountain West Conference first-team selection for the Rams.
Haggerty did his part for the Tigers, finishing with 18 points. Dain Dainja was seemingly unstoppable for stretches of the first half and early in the second half, bullying his way on the interior to 22 points and 12 rebounds for the Tigers.
But Dainja disappeared and was held to two points over the final 15 minutes. And Memphis being without point guard Tyrese Hunter because of a lower leg/foot injury became a major problem as the Rams rallied and eventually pulled away.
The Tigers have not advanced to the second weekend of the NCAAs since 2009.
“We want to make deep runs in March. We haven’t done that yet. It doesn’t matter what happened in either of those games, I haven’t gotten it done yet, just got to get better,” Memphis coach Penny Hardaway said.
Colorado State trailed 41-34 in the early stages of the second half before going on a 30-13 run. Evans capped the run with a three-pointer to take a 64-54 lead with 8:38 remaining. Memphis was never able to pull closer to six the rest of the way with Colorado State finding answers for every push the Tigers attempted to make.
“The energy was crazy in there. I saw a lot of green. So I knew our fans traveled and it was super cool to see that, have them be able to experience this feeling with us,” Clifford said.
