FORT COLLINS — The book is out on Ali Farokhmanesh’s Rams.

Get in their face, pressure them and, more often than not, their high-powered offense falls apart.

That’s been the case in all five losses so far this season for Colorado State (10-5, 1-3 Mountain West) — including in Tuesday’s 80-70 home defeat to New Mexico (12-3, 3-1 MW) at Moby Arena in Fort Collins. Until they adjust, Farokhmanesh’s group can expect to see plenty more of that as the winter goes on.

“Honestly, that’s the scout on us now,” sophomore guard Jase Butler said. “Teams are just going to try and pressure us. Until we prove we can beat that — I think we have some games, but all of our losses have come to teams that pressure us.”

It wasn’t a secret that the Lobos were going to come into the game and be aggressive. They have the No. 2 defense in the Mountain West and entered the night with the best opponent field-goal percentage in the conference.

But the Rams looked like a team that wasn’t ready for what it knew was coming, and that’s what frustrated Farokhmanesh the most. CSU led for just 37 seconds in the entire 40 minutes, and that came just 90 seconds in. UNM was able to build a double-digit lead in the later stages of the first half and kept CSU at arms’ length the rest of the way.

“We tiptoe into games. We don’t run to the fight right now,” Farokhmanesh said. “We got shell-shocked with the pressure and whatnot and you could see it with the rhythm of the offense. We gotta know that by now. There’s gotta be a little different fight than what is showing up offensively just to get catches where you want the ball. 

“Credit to them — I thought they took us out of a bunch of stuff in the first half. We got a rhythm eventually. That’s the game plan (against) us right now: Overpressure and get physical.”

With leading scorer Kyle Jorgensen still out, the Rams’ dynamic backcourt duo of Brandon Rechsteiner and Josh Pascarelli struggled to find their games, offensively. They each proved during nonconference play they can get hot from 3-point range at any given time and even carry CSU to a win.

But the Lobos ensured those two only got six 3-pointers combined with just one make between them.

“We gotta do a better job as a staff, too, to put them in better positions to create some more driving lanes to get to the basket and some more pressure releases as well,” Farokhmanesh said. “At the end of the day, you gotta be tougher with the ball in your hands. We left our teammates on islands sometimes, and they were allowed to get free pressure. We gotta have the right mindset going into the game and know what’s coming.”

The CSU defense also didn’t seem ready for the fight, either. That’s been the Achilles’ heel for this team since the season started, but often they’ve been able to score enough for it not to matter. That hasn’t been the case in the first four Mountain West games, especially on Tuesday night. The Rams only got one “kill” (three stops in a row) and it came in the first few minutes. 

Every time it felt like the Rams were on the verge of making a comeback, the Lobos had an answer on the other end.

“There were multiple times I thought we were close to making a run, but just a couple miscues, errors defensively and they took advantage of it,” Farokhmanesh said.

GAME RECAP

New Mexico 80, Colorado State 70

What happened: The Rams (10-5, 1-3 Mountain West) dropped a second-straight home game, this one at the hands of the Lobos (12-3, 3-1 MW), who executed their game plan to perfection at Moby Arena. UNM led for nearly 37 of the 40 minutes and all eight players scored at least six points.

Star of the night: CSU’s Augustinas Kiudulas has adjusted well to the new position the Rams have asked him to play amid injury issues in the frontcourt and he turned in his best performance since joining the program in the summer. The junior forward from Lithuania scored a season-high 20 points on 7-for-10 shooting from the field, including 3 for 5 from 3-point range.

Up next: The Rams remain at home and take on UNLV on Friday (8 p.m. CBS Sports Network).