Aggies look to avenge road loss as they take on the Warriors
USU will take the court tonight to try to win 14 straight home victories as well as avenge a 69-60 road loss to the University of Hawaii on Jan. 29.
The Aggies come into the game with a three-game winning streak with the most recent victory a 75-66 win over Idaho on Saturday.
Hawaii is coming in after a 71-68 loss at the hands of New Mexico State on Monday night. The Warriors had two chances in the final seconds to send the game into overtime but missed two 3-pointers.
USU is seeking revenge after its last road loss to Hawaii. At the end of the first half, both teams were knotted up at 25. In the second half the Aggies gained a seven-point advantage before junior guard Matt Gibson took over the game for Hawaii and ran to a nine-point victory. For the game, Gibson scored 20 points, including 18 in the second half.
Aggie guard Kris Clark was the player guarding Gibson during that key stretch and is taking it upon himself to contain him.
“I am going to take it as a personal challenge, because he did come in the second half and get hot, and the majority of the time I was guarding him,” Clark said. “I felt like I didn’t play as well as I can defensively, which kind of brought me down offensively. I had a few turnovers which were unforced.”
During a 21-9 run for Hawaii in the second half, USU gave up three offensive rebounds which Hawaii converted into three point plays. Winning the rebounding battle will be important for the Aggies.
“Last game (against Idaho) we did a lot better job of rebounding and we got to continue that for this game,” senior forward Chris Session said.
In addition to turning over the ball 14 times in Hawaii, the Aggies also gave up a lot of easy points off of backdoor cuts for lay-ups. Both Session and Clark agree that they cannot give up any easy baskets and that the team has been working on defensively slowing down the Warriors.
“We have a great scout team, and they run almost everything to perfection,” Session said. “They run those back cuts, and coach doesn’t tell us when they throw them in. They just do them and we have to react to them just like game time situations.”
“We have been working on that a lot and trying to contain our man and also in trying to help on defense – mainly knowing where your man is at all times – which is a defensive principle,” Clark said.
Another key for the Aggies is controlling the post. In the last outing, the Warriors blocked the ball 10 times, including five by center Ahmet Gueye.
“Ahmet was containing our big guys by blocking shots and cutting down our penetration. That is a big part of our offense,” Clark said. “Guys were taking second guesses going in there. We are going to have use more of a team strategy.”
With Aggie forward Chaz Spicer still recovering from the sickness that kept him out of the Idaho game, look for 6-foot-11 big-man Arvydas Vaituekus. In the Idaho game, he scored a career-high 12 points on 6-6 shooting.
“He’s going to have to be another presence under the basket and get a couple of blocked shots himself,” Clark said.
Action starts at 7:05 p.m. at the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum.
-samabry@cc.usu.edu