Best start ever
With a 66-51 victory over the University of Pacific Tigers, the Utah State men’s basketball team improved to 12-1, breaking a tie with the 1938-39 and ’34-35 teams for the best start in school history.
“It was wild,” said Aggie Head Coach Stew Morrill. “But that’s just how they are with Pacific.”
USU dominated the first half Thursday night in the Spectrum, outscoring the Tigers 33-17, and allowed only two field goals on 22 attempts. Pacific was kept alive on 12-18 shooting from the line and a three-quarter court prayer by David Doubley at the buzzer.
“The best start can turn into a .500 season really quickly. Our focus is just winning the next game,” Aggie forward Spencer Nelson said. “We’ll enjoy it in April.”
“We won a game with our defense for a change,” Morrill said. “It’s kind of nice. Pacific is leading the league defensively and we felt like we had to step up and defend if we wanted to win, and that’s what we’ve hounded our guys about the last few days.”
Coming off the bench, sophomore Nate Harris lead all scorers with 15 points. Harris also grabbed seven rebounds and added four blocks.
“Spencer had three or four offensive rebounds in the first couple minutes,” Harris said. “Everybody was playing hard. It makes it easier to just maintain what they’re doing.”
For the Tigers, Christian Maraker was held to seven points on 2-8 shooting and managed only two rebounds. Maraker, a 6-9 sophomore from Varberg, Sweden, came into Thursday night’s game leading the Tigers with 14.4 points per game.
“We didn’t want to have to double [Maraker],” Morrill said. “He’s an awfully good player, but it skews you all around the court. Our post guys did a good job defensively.”
The second half, which saw Pacific more than quadruple their shooting percentage from 9.1 to 42.4, was slowed by fouls from both teams. In all 44 foul shots were taken.
“They make the game physical. There are lots of fouls called when you play them,” Morrill said. “That’s just the kind of game we’ve had against Pacific for as long as I’ve been here and that’s how they’re going to be – physical foul-fests.”
The Aggies were able to control the tempo of the game and stifle Pacific’s offensive attack with a tight man-to-man defense, rarely utilizing the zone that was so effective last week against Cal Poly.
“They’re too good against a zone,” Morrill said. “It’s a good thing our man [defense] was good.”
Nelson, this week’s BWC Player of the Week, set the tone early with eight points and four offensive rebounds in the first half. Nelson finished the night with nine points, 10 rebounds and three assists, including an alley-oop to Harris to put an exclamation on the game.
“It’s really important to us that no one comes out, in any game, with more energy than we have,” Nelson said. “Tonight we were able to come out with a lot of energy.”
Pacific guard Miah Davis led the Tigers in scoring with nine points. Davis was unable to finish the game after a mid-court collision with Nelson with four minutes left in the second half.
“I didn’t think it was a cheap-shot,” Nelson said. “It was just a screen. He hit me with some good force. I hope he’s OK.”
Aggie leading scorer Cardell Butler finished the game with 10 points on 3-of-9 shooting and matched a career high with six assists.
“They’ll be laying in the weeds when we go to Stockton,” Morrill said. “But that’s a ways away. We’ve got to worry about Northridge next.”
With the victory, the Ags move into sole possession of first place in the Big West, and improve their record against Pacific to 41-19 overall, and 28-1 at home.
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Aggie John Neil gets in Tiger Jasko Korajkic´s face. Utah State held Pacific to two field goals in the first half Thursday. (Photo by Ryan Talbot)