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Joe Scott saw this coming early. He called a timeout just two minutes into the game. He made an uncharacteristic wholesale, four-player substitution three minutes later.

Things never really got better for any sustained amount of time.

The Falcons fell 65-40 to Fresno State – a season-low offensive output – on a snowy Tuesday night that brought just 545 fans to Clune Arena.

The arena wasn’t the only place lacking energy, and that’s what bothered Scott the most.

“What I’ve tried to coach and get these guys to understand is sort of the grit and fight you’ve got to have and the willingness and eagerness to be involved in that,” said Scott, who is starting three freshmen and a sophomore in his second season in his second stint with the team. “That is part of this growth, as you go through in this league, you’ve got to have that. You’ve got to have that first and foremost.”

Air Force (10-16, 3-12 Mountain West) needed “determination” and “fortitude” – two other words Scott used in a postgame press conference – to overcome the challenge that faced them on Tuesday. Center Orlando Robinson, a 7-foot NBA prospect who drew at least three scouts to Air Force despite the snow, scored 26 points, hitting 8-of-12 from the field and 10-of-11 from the line. Isaiah Hill added 15 points and another 7-footer, Braxton Meah, made both of his shots and grabbed eight rebounds.

The Bulldogs (17-10, 7-7) shot .57.5% from the field and were 14 of 16 from the line.

Air Force attempted just three free throws (making all three) and was 30% from the field.

Leading scorer A.J. Walker went 0-for-9 from the field, enduring his first scoreless game in nearly two years. Guard Ethan Taylor scored just two points.

The shots weren’t falling, and there wasn’t another variable present to overcome it.

“We came out flat,” freshman Jake Heidbreder said after scoring a team-high 14 points – his fourth consecutive game in double figures. We started terrible. … We just need to keep bringing energy as much as possible and play our hardest every game.”

The Falcons have now lost eight in a row.

“Maybe this will be the game we look back at one day if we get to be like that,” Scott said, envisioning a day when the team, to a man, consistently brings the kind of energy and execution he expects. “Maybe we look back and say, ‘Remember that game when that wasn’t us, and that was part of the growth process for these guys?’ I know that’s how I’m going to approach it.

“I’m going to remember this game.”

Lucas Moerman doesn’t enjoy much spare time as a freshman at the Air Force Academy, but he has consistently used his on the basketball court.

He’s there before practice. He stays after, sometimes on his own, sometimes with coaches and fellow center Nikc Jackson. On days without practice, he’ll put up 500 to 1,000 shots.

“There’s not a lot of spare moments in the day, but you get used to it,” Moerman said.

For all the ways Saturday’s performance from the 6-foot-11 center at No. 22 Wyoming – 15 points, 6-of-7 shooting, six rebounds, two blocks – was valuable, perhaps the most critical was that Moerman was able to see tangible results from all the work.

Included in that 75-67 loss, in which the Falcons were tied with the Cowboys deep in the second half in front of 8312 at Arena-Auditorium, was a 3-of-4 showing from Moerman from behind the 3-point line.

He had made just 2-of-12 from 3-point range across the previous nine games. He had never made more than one 3-pointer in a game or reached double figures in scoring.

“The day’s coming when he’ll make three in a row, four in a row,” coach Joe Scott said. “His shot is a really nice-looking stroke. It’s the way the ball’s supposed to be shot. It’s just that before this year, he never shot a 3-point shot.”

This year has been an adjustment for Moerman in so many ways. The freshman experience at the academy is, by design, difficult. Moerman said he’s surviving more than thriving away from basketball, but that’s good enough. On the floor, at about 215 pounds, Moerman has been asked to defend the Mountain West’s bevy of larger interior players.

That will continue on Tuesday, as Fresno State (16-10, 6-7 Mountain West) comes to Clune Arena to face the Falcons (10-15, 3-11) at 7 p.m. The Bulldogs feature All-Mountain West candidate Orlando Robinson, a 7-foot junior who is averaging 18.1 points and 8.1 rebounds per game.

Moerman excelled in some respects, ranking second in the Mountain West with 1.5 blocks per game. His 34 blocks have set a freshman record for Air Force and are third all-time for season in program history. The offensive production, however, has disappeared at times, as Moerman averaged fewer than 3 points per game across 12 contests from Dec. 21 through Feb. 16. Overall he is averaging 3.9 points, 3.5 rebounds in 19 minutes per game.

The work continued throughout that span, but the results just hadn’t shown up. As a result, defenses didn’t feel the need to come out and guard Air Force’s centers at the 3-point line (Jackson is shooting 28.9 percent from deep). That has congested the lane and taken away backdoor cuts from the Falcons’ Princeton offense. The only way to break that is to make shots. For Moerman, who is usually around 60 percent from 3-point range when shooting in practice, Saturday showed him he could translate that into games, perhaps setting the whole offense up for a positive change.

If that seems like a lot of pressure to put on one player, well, welcome to Moerman’s world. With his size, he was instantly a rarity for the program when he signed from Doherty High School in Colorado Springs and arrived on the team after a year at the prep school. Then he was inserted in the starting lineup for the opener. He is obviously pegged as a cornerstone for the program along with fellow freshmen Ethan Taylor and Jake Heidbreder.

“Sometimes,” Moerman said when asked if he feels the weight of those expectations. “But I have to remind myself that college is a four-year deal. … As long as I come in with the attitude every day that I’m going to get better, I think that’s the biggest deal.”

Having a one-game sample to build from might be a step in the right direction for Moerman.

“I knew it was going to come eventually because I know what I’m capable of and I could sort of see the trajectory I’m on. But I was just kind of going through a slump the last couple of games and trying to figure things out.

“It was nice to finally have that and all the work I’m putting in behind the scenes that nobody sees, it was nice to have that kind of pay off a little bit.”

Most blocks in a season

Lucas Moerman is moving up Air Force’s record book as a freshman.

Byrce Morgan, 45 1993-94

David Schuck, 28 1998-99

Lucas Moerman, 34 2021-22

There wasn’t just one thing that allowed the Air Force women to overcome a pesky challenge from Utah State on Saturday.

Maybe that’s the key to why this program keeps chugging along in ways it never has before – because they’ve suddenly filled their arsenal with so many ways to win.

In beating Utah State 67-56 at Clune Arena in a unique spot as a favored team needing a win, the Falcons answered immediately all five times the Aggies scored to tie or take the lead (each time with a different player), they piled up seven steals to gain separation in the third quarter and had signature style performances from all three seniors on a day they celebrated the outgoing class.

The win extends Air Force’s school record for victories in a season (15) and conference season (9) and guarantees the program will not finish below .500 for the first time since it moved to Division 1 in 1996.

“They really believe,” coach Chris Gobrecht said. “They believe they’re going to find a way, so that’s how they play.”

The win pushes Air Force (15-11, 9-6 Mountain West) into sole possession of fourth place in the Mountain West, half a game up on No. 5 Wyoming. The top five earn first-round byes in the conference tournament. Colorado State is a game back in sixth place but with two more games remaining than the Falcons. Air Force would hold the tiebreaker over the Rams.

Those stakes made the game against the Aggies (8-19, 3-13) all the more important, and Utah State made things difficult behind 27 points and 10 rebounds from Adryana Quezada.

Air Force senior Cierra Winters scored the game’s first six points en route to 13, but Utah State recovered to take the lead early in the second quarter.

Winters immediately responded with the next five points.

The Aggies tied it a few minutes later and freshman Lauren McDonald hit a 3 to push Air Force back in front.

That’s how it went through the two middle quarters, with Kamri Heath, Nikki McDonald and Riley Snyder coming up with immediate answers just as the Aggies would tie or move in front.

“We know that every player on our team can score,” Winters said. “We just trust each other to get it done.”

Winters had three of the Falcons’ seven third-quarter steals, with the defense leading the way to close the quarter on a 10-2 run and pull ahead by eight.

The Falcons finally opened their first double-digit lead in the fourth quarter and Gobrecht removed her three seniors together with a minute remaining. There is still one home game left on the schedule, but they opted to celebrate the seniors on Saturday to ensure families could travel in for the weekend game.

Seniors Audrey Gadison (knee injury) and Briana Autry-Thompson (academics) were unavailable to play, but were honored along with their classmates in a pregame ceremony.

And the seniors led. Winters had five steals to go with her 13 points. Snyder, celebrating her birthday, scored a team-high 17 points with six rebounds. Haley Jones added nine points, eight rebounds and two steals.

“We knew that’s a game we should have won,” Snyder said. “We know we’re going to get everybody’s best. We have to make sure we’re winning the games that we need to win, which, honestly, from here on out we want to win every single one of them.”

Gobrecht inherited a program in 2015 that had lost 43 consecutive games against Mountain West competition. Her first two seasons produced a record of 5-54. Now, the Falcons have won as many games in this month (4) with two games remaining as they had ever won in a full conference season before her arrival.

“(Assistant coach) Stacey (McIntyre) and I gave each other a little extra pat on the back and said, ‘Did we ever think we’d get to 15?’” Gobrecht said of the record number of wins the program has posted. “So, yes, it does, it feels pretty good. I couldn’t’ think of a better bunch to be able to celebrate it with.

“But we’ve got to stay hungry.”