Basketball gets first tune-up of year with blowout of Laval
Junior guard Brockeith Pane scored 16 points and five other Aggies reached double figures to lead Utah State over Universite Laval Red and Gold Saturday night, 93-51. Jean Beaulieu led the out-matched Red and Gold with 19 points and Jerome Turcotte added 17 of his own. Despite the dominant performance, the Aggies felt there is still room for improvement.
“It’s a work in progress, obviously,” USU forward Brady Jardine said. “I think we did some things really well and I think we did some things poorly. That’s the nice thing about a veteran team; we realize that a 50-point win doesn’t mean anything. We’ve still got a long way to go.”
Jardine got the start in place of senior forward Nate Bendall, and finished with 11 points and 12 rebounds. Jardine’s role may become more significant this season because Bendall did not dress for the game, and his right foot may have him out for an extended period of time.
“It’s the same stuff,” Aggie head coach Stew Morrill said. “He (Bendall) tried to go and he just couldn’t go. He wakes up in the morning and can’t walk. He’s got chronic foot issues. He’s got two screws in his feet; stress fractures flare up all over. We were fortunate to get him through last year. Whether or not he will play again at all is hard to say. He’s gonna be out at least four weeks or more and then we’ll go from there.”
Going into the season, the point guard position was a big question mark for the Aggies. Pane played well, but so did freshman guard James Walker III, who finished with six points, seven assists and two steals. Both Pane and Walker III were quick on defense and efficiently ran the fast break.
“I was encouraged at the point guard position,” Morrill said. “I thought both Brockeith and James did a nice job.”
One thing that Morrill and the Aggies were not happy with was their first-half defense. The Red and Gold hit 44 percent of their shots and Beaulieu and Turcotte both reached double-digits in the first half.
“(Turcotte), we didn’t have much of an answer for him in the first half,” Morrill said. “I was on them pretty hard at halftime. I didn’t like how we defended and then we held them to 11 points in the second half until the last minute and a half. We weren’t very good defensively in the first half. We played much better defensively in the second half.”
The Aggies held the Red and Gold to 25 percent shooting in the second half and the Red and Gold finished shooting 34.6 percent on the night.
“This is a great team,” Red and Gold head coach Jacques Paiement, Jr. said. “They’ve got everything, they’re physical, they can shoot, they can pound it inside, and so it’s a good team. I don’t think we are the only ones they are going to blow out this year.”
The Aggies finished shooting 56.7 percent from the floor and 42.1 percent from 3-point range, while struggling from the free-throw line, hitting 68 percent of their shots. Regardless of the statistics, the exhibition game served its purpose for Morrill and the Aggies.
“On we go,” Morrill said. “It’s what exhibition games are all about. It was nice to get out there and play somebody different besides ourselves and get everybody a chance to get in front of our crowd a little bit.”
So are the Aggies ready for the regular season?
“We need another exhibition game,” Jardine said. “Every day and every way we get a little better, and that’s how it’s going to be the rest of the season. As the season progresses we’ll get better and better.”
Luckily for Jardine and the rest of the Aggies, they will face Grand Canyon before the regular season starts, and it will be a more difficult test than their game against the Red and Gold.
“It’s an American team, a good non-division team,” Morrill said. “They’ve had a great tradition. They have some transfer-back guys. They’ll be real physical. It’ll be totally different than playing a foreign team.”
The Aggies will face Grand Canyon on Friday at 7 p.m. in the Spectrum.
– ty.d.hus@aggiemail.usu.edu