No. 19 CSU basketball team to play San Diego State Saturday on national TV
Unpack the winter coats and bring out the sunglasses.
The Colorado State men’s basketball team won’t play at Boise State on Friday night.
Instead, the Rams will play at San Diego State on Saturday afternoon. The game will be at 2 p.m. Mountain on CBS.
The schedule pivot comes due to a variety of COVID-19 issues in the Mountain West.
Boise State’s last two games (at Wyoming and at Utah State) were postponed due to COVID issues in the Broncos program. CSU coach Niko Medved said after the Rams won Tuesday night that he didn’t expect Boise State would be able to play Friday.
San Diego State was scheduled to host Nevada Saturday on CBS, but the Wolf Pack are unable to play due to their own COVID issues.
That left not only a hole in CSU and San Diego State’s schedules, but one in a marquee national TV market that the Mountain West would not want vacant.
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Now CBS and the Mountain West get a marquee game between arguably the top two teams in the conference.
CSU is 11-0 (1-0 MW) and ranked No. 19 in the USA Today Coaches Poll and No. 20 in the Associated Press poll. San Diego State is 9-3 (1-0 MW) and a perennial power. The Rams were picked first in the preseason Mountain West basketball poll, with San Diego State tabbed second.
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There’s plenty of intrigue in the matchup as well after CSU pulled off the largest comeback in Mountain West history last season at San Diego State.
CSU is No. 27 in the NCAA's NET ranking and San Diego State is No. 56, meaning it is a Quadrant 1 game for both teams.
CSU was originally scheduled to play at San Diego State on March 1, but this replaces that game. The Aztecs visit Fort Collins on Feb. 4.
If the CSU at Boise State and Nevada at San Diego State games can't be rescheduled, they'll be declared "no contests."
David Roddy named to Wooden Watch list
Also on Wednesday, CSU star David Roddy was named one of 25 finalists for the John R. Wooden Award for the nation's most valuable player.
The junior forward is second in the Mountain West and 25th nationally with 19.7 points per game. He ranks 72nd in the country at 8.1 rebounds per contest.
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This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: San Diego State basketball to host CSU basketball on Saturday game on CBS
