Sam Morris

The Colorado State women’s basketball team celebrates its 68-49 upset win Tuesday over UNLV in the play-in game of the Mountain West Conference Tournament. Before Tuesday, the team was 2-27 overall and 0-16 in conference play.

By Ron Kantowski

Thu, Mar 13, 2008 (2 a.m.)

Moments after his team upset Wyoming during brunch on Wednesday — the game started at the absolutely weird hour of 11 a.m. — Tim Miles, the preppy-looking coach of the Colorado State men’s basketball team, was asked to make an introductory remark at the postgame news conference.

“Now I know how McGovern felt when he lost 35 straight states before winning Minnesota,” Miles said after the Rams snapped a 17-game losing streak with a 68-63 victory over arch-rival Wyoming in the Mountain West Conference play-in game at the Thomas & Mack Center.

Miles, who had been grinning from ear to ear, briefly frowned when the stoic media did not chuckle at his best attempt to produce a sound bite.

I think he actually was referring to Walter Mondale, who carried Minnesota and the District of Columbia and that was about it against Ronald Reagan in 1984, and not George McGovern, who was boat-raced almost as badly by Richard Nixon in 1968, winning just Massachusetts and D.C. Maybe that’s why the media didn’t get it.

Or it could have been because the audio feed in the interview room sounded like the drive-up window at Carl’s Jr.

But, most likely, it was because it was a little past 1 and the press was hungry, because they weren’t serving free lunch.

I’m not sure whether they serve free lunch in Dayton, aka the Play-In Capital of the World, but this is why you generally want to avoid the play-in game, at least if you’re a member of the (sorta) working press and you skipped breakfast. The second reason you want to avoid the play-in game is that a team such as Colorado State doesn’t necessarily treat it as a death sentence.

Make that teams such as Colorado State. Plural. Men and women. Or, in this case, boys and girls.

The CSU men (no seniors) were 0-16 in conference play this year.

So were the women (two seniors) and 2-27 overall.

When it comes to futility, the Rams’ basketball teams were the ’62 Mets and the ’72-73 Sixers and the ’76 Tampa Bay Bucs all rolled into two. They were awful, dreadful, pitiful and any other “ful” word you can think of. They were 0-32 in conference play heading to Las Vegas.

At 1 o’clock Wednesday, they were 2-0. By 6, they were 3-0.

Ain’t sports grand?

In the space of 24 hours, every dog had a day, what goes around came around, hell froze over. Mondale beat Reagan. McGovern beat Nixon.

The Colorado State women beat UNLV in the play-in game and then shocked Utah — 16-0 in the Mountain West, the No. 1 seed in the tourney and the 12th ranked women’s basketball team in the country. Final score, 60-52. Look out Friday, New Mexico.

The Colorado State men beat Wyoming, 68-63, in the play-in game.

The 27 fans who made the trip from Fort Collins and one guy wearing a red New Mexico T-shirt who started pulling for the Rams in the second half did a Prince impression, minus the eye shadow and boas. They partied like it was 1999. And 2003.

In 1999, the CSU women were a No. 3 seed in the NCAA Tournament and made it to the Sweet 16. That was Becky Hammon’s senior year. She’s still hooping it up in the WNBA.

In 2003, the CSU men were seeded 16th or 17th — actually, they were a 7 — when they ran the table and beat UNLV in the championship game on its home floor (and Steve Alford said it couldn’t be done). The next week, the Rams gave Duke all it wanted in the Big Dance. That was Brian Greene’s senior year. He may or may not still be hooping it up in Turkey.

The point is the Rams weren’t always this bad.

Don Hahn, no relation to the old Mets outfielder, has been a CSU season-ticket holder for 35 years. He remembers Becky Hammon and 1999; he was here when Brian Greene silenced a capacity crowd by drilling a 15-footer just before the final buzzer, turning Marcus Banks and the Rebels’ March Madness into sadness.

Hahn doesn’t know the ZIP code in Istanbul, or he’d still be sending Greene a Christmas card. He put $100 on the Rams that year. At 18-to-1. “I didn’t bet on them this year,” he said at halftime of the Wyoming game.

Faith, it has been said, knows no boundaries. But sometimes when your big men are injured and you can’t beat Oklahoma Panhandle, you gotta draw the line. You’re not even tempted at 100-1, which is what the Rams were this year.

Other than Tony McAndrews’ team that went 3-24 in 1980-81, Hahn said he couldn’t remember a worse year in basketball than this one. Before Wednesday, the Rams had six wins, with one of those coming against Oregon State, which was 0-18 in the Pac-10. The others came against Tennessee State, Portland State, Arkansas-Pine Bluff, Denver and the Washington Generals — er Western State.

Western State? Isn’t that who Robby Benson played for in “One-on-One”?

Actually, ol’ Henry Steele, Benson’s character, probably was cheering for the Rams to end their losing streak, too — “One on One” was filmed at Moby Arena (back when it was known as Moby Gym) on the CSU campus, which somehow seems appropriate. Because as far as movies go, it was almost as forgettable as this year’s Colorado State season(s).

Perhaps in keeping with the spirit of the CSU season(s), Hahn and his pal Don Jackson are staying at the Knights Inn on Paradise Road. Judging from the Internet reviews, the Knights Inn is ... well, let’s just call it Howard Johnson’s distant cousin.

After the game, I saw Hahn and Jackson high-fiving the other 25 fans sporting dark green and khaki who had made the trip and the guy wearing the New Mexico T-shirt. Unless you were a Wyoming fan — or a local bar owner planning on a long weekend of serving them — you had to be feel happy for that bunch behind the Rams bench. Like their men’s and women basketball teams, those 27 CSU fans didn’t give up when God, or at least Digger Phelps, knows they should have a long time ago.

Hahn spotted me walking toward the interview room where Miles would drop that McGovern/Mondale reference on the unsuspecting and famished media.

He was smiling and rubbing his hands together. I think he was trying to tell me that he had changed his mind and was going to put a sawbuck down on the Rams after all.

Either that, or he was asking for one so he could upgrade to a room at Motel 6.