Takeaways from Colorado State's sweep of basketball doubleheader

“He’s a freak athlete. One-of-one. I’ve never seen anybody — maybe Carey (Booth),” CSU guard Jase Butler said. “He had 11 rebounds his first college game as a freshman. That’s big-time. He brings so much energy to us.”

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CSU had 10 first-half turnovers, a combo of some sloppy play and what coach Ali Farokhmanesh called mistakes in play-calling that he took blame for.

Early in the second half Montana State took a brief lead after the Rams had led by 11 at one point in the first half.

But CSU settled in. The Rams went on a 7-0 run shortly after Montana State took the lead and CSU controlled the game after that point.

CSU had nine assists to just one turnover in the final 10-minute stretch of the game.

And it’s no pushover of an opponent. Montana State was picked to win the Big Sky and could be a threat come March.

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Butler had 12 points, 10 rebounds and six assists for his first-career double-double to start a season where he could make a leap toward stardom.

Josh Pascarelli had 16 points as did Carey Booth. Jojo McIver, who had offseason Tommy John surgery and just recently returned to action, had four assists off the bench.

Junior CSU women’s basketball wing player Caitlin Kramer played 31 total minutes for the Rams last season.

In the 2026-27 season-opener: 39 minutes.

And she performed very well. Kramer had 14 points, went 4-6 from 3-point range and grabbed 11 rebounds for a double-double.

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“Kramer’s been arguably our best all-around player in practice. She’s got the incredible length. She’s shot it extremely well. She moves and cuts really well,” CSU coach Ryun Williams said. “It was Kramer that was our calm, I felt like. I’m proud of her.”

Guards Kloe Froebe and Camryn Runner will be the engines in a lot of ways for the Rams, but Kramer has been working on developing her game and will be a central piece for this team. Her length causes problems for opposing offenses and she showed her scoring chops.

A big leap up from Kramer this season would bode well for the team.

It was a pretty sloppy first-half for the Rams, who led Lindenwood just 26-22 at the break.

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“Everything that we did wrong, it did get exposed. They picked on us inside a little bit, we gave them a lot of angles. We don’t do that, but it’s an opener,” Williams said. “We played worse openers, for sure. It’s a good one to have under our belt because there’s a lot of good stuff we can take off of that film and get better from.”

But CSU settled in and found a way to pull away and win the opener. Ten players saw the floor, but but only six played double-digit minutes and three had 35 or more minutes.

“We’re trying to play this group into experience,” Williams said.

CSU is replacing a bevy of key players from its 2026 NCAA Tournament team and Williams leaned heavily on the core rotation to begin the season.

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Sports reporter Kevin Lytle can be found on social media on X, Instagram and Threads@Kevin_Lytle and on Bluesky.

This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Takeaways from Colorado State’s sweep of basketball doubleheader