Reed nearly records double-double in 77-63 win over Louisiana Tech
USU forward Kyisean Reed tends to thrive against smaller teams, and he did just that against Louisiana Tech Thursday night.
The junior scored 20 points — 16 in the first half — and pulled down nine rebounds to lead the Aggies over the Bulldogs 77-63 in the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum.
“We needed a win in the worst way, obviously, so it was nice we did the things we had to do,” said USU head coach Stew Morrill. “I thought we guarded awfully well in the second half and got ourselves a comfortable margin. Obviously we shot the ball. There were quite a few phases of the game where we did a lot better tonight.”
After dropping two difficult road losses, USU struggled to gain any type of lead in a first half, which featured five tied scores and seven lead changes.
“It’s not easy for us to win,” Morrill said. “We just have to keep fighting to find a way to get wins.”
Louisiana Tech came out firing from 3-point land — hitting four consecutive treys to begin the game — but USU stemmed the attack with offensive spurts of its own. The Aggies shot 5 of 7 from 3-point range and 48 percent overall in the first half.
“We wanted to come out tonight and make sure we got this win,” Reed said.
A layup from senior guard Brockeith Pane gave the Aggies their largest lead of the first half at 11-6, four minutes into the half, but the Bulldogs kept things close the entire half.
Freshman guard Raheem Appleby hit a floater with just under five minutes remaining in the first half to tie the game at 29. Sophomore guard Preston Medlin led the Aggies in scoring with 22 points and hit a jumper from the top of the arc to give USU the lead for good two minutes later.
Pane had six assists, all of which came in the first half, and no turnovers to go with nine points on the night.
“I thought Brockeith had a really good floor game,” Morrill said. “I talked with him about how we can’t have as many turnovers out of our guards. He goes six assists and no turnovers, and I thought that was key thing for us. Obviously Preston had a really good overall game, and Kyisean got loose for a while.”
Reed did get loose in the second half.
“I came out and got two fouls in the first half, so I tried to come out and make sure I had energy after sitting for such a while,” Reed said.
The junior from Palmdale, Calif., threw down a trio of dunks and took over in the paint against the Bulldogs, as he went 6 of 7 from the field. USU outscored the Bulldogs in the key 42-20, scoring 30 of those 42 points in the second half.
For the fourth-straight game, USU out-rebounded its opponent, as the Aggies out-rebounded Louisiana Tech 35-29.
“I think that is from our energy,” Reed said. “We’re going a lot harder, and we’re defending. Teams are missing a lot of shots obviously.”
USU’s biggest lead of the night came off a layup from Medlin with 8:01 to play to go up 61-45.
Louisiana Tech, which went 12 of 29 against USU in Ruston, La., cooled off from the field after hitting 38.5 percent from 3-point range and 41 percent overall in the first half.
“We got a lot of open looks,” said Louisiana Tech head coach Michael White. “You have to make open 3’s on the road. We were 8 of 27. Probably two of those 27 were contested. You’ve got to make open shots on the road — especially in an environment like this — to slow down their runs, and we just didn’t get it done.”
The Bulldogs finished 8 of 27 from the 3-point line and shot 39.7 percent overall.
A 3-pointer from junior guard Brandon Gibson, who finished with 15 points, cut the Aggie advantage 69-63 with a 3-pointer, but that was as close as Louisana Tech would get.
– ty.d.hus@aggiemail.usu.edu