Free throws carry USU in overtime victory
In an back and forth game, the Utah State University men’s basketball team relied heavily on free throws to get a 90-81 home win over BYU Saturday night.
Saturday night’s game proved to be a fairly even match. Both the ‘Y’ and the Aggies hit 28 field goals, and BYU had nine to the Aggies six three-pointers, but one of the big differences in the game came from the free-throw line where the Aggies hit 28-30.
“They answered the call,” USU Head Coach Stew Morrill said.
It was in overtime that the importance of the free throws really came into play. The first four points for the Aggies came from the line after forwards Desmond Penigar and Chad Evans made two crucial offensive rebounds in which they were fouled, but it didn’t stop there.
Of the 15 points the Aggies scored in overtime, 11 of them were from the line. Guard Tony Brown had six, Penigar and Evans both had a pair and guard Ronnie Ross gave the Aggies one point from the line.
“We work on them a lot. We have kids come extra during their off hours and shoot a couple hundred a week, besides what we shoot in practice,” Morrill said. “We work on technique and all those things so it’s nice to see that rewarded.”
The Aggies work in practice really has shown. A few years ago the Aggies were last in the league in free-throw percentages and with the same group last year made a huge turnaround as they moved up the list to fifth in the league.
With this year’s team the trend looks as though it will even get better, Morrill said.
Leading the group in free throws were two starters, Penigar and Brown, who totaled 18 points just from the line. On the night Penigar was 10-10 from the line and Brown ended the night shooting 8-8, hitting six free throws in overtime.
Despite his overtime performance, Brown said he doesn’t feel special for hitting such pressure shots because of his confidence in the team.
“We shot a pretty good percentage from the line,” Brown said. “Everybody on our team can make them, we showed it pretty good tonight.”