Penigar continues to dominate offensively
Utah State forward Desmond Penigar ended Saturday night’s home game with 26 points as he led the Utah State University men’s basketball team to a 70-66 victory against Long Beach State University.
In the Big West Conference, Penigar holds the No. 2 position for most points scored thus far in the season with 276 points and before Saturday’s game, averaged 17.9 points per game, which will go up due to his performance against LBSU.
“I was on fire for a little bit,” Penigar said. “I was knocking down all my shots and the guys were giving me the ball. Then Tony [Brown] started knocking down shots and when he started knocking down shots that just opened me up more.”
Penigar also had help from others on the team, including point guard Ronnie Ross.
Near the end of the first half, Ross received the ball after a missed LBSU shot and went on a fast break with Penigar at his right and two defensive players guarding them. Without hesitation Ross made a pass through the two defenders to Penigar who made the layup and the free throw after getting fouled.
“Me and Ross, we’ve got that chemistry,” Penigar said. “He says just run the floor and I’ll get you the ball, so every time I’m just trying to run the floor hard so I can get the ball and try to bring his assist rate up.”
Although Penigar is the top scorer on the USU team, points are not all the 6-foot-7-inch forward worries about.
Defense is a very important part of the game to Penigar, which he said he’s made great improvement since the beginning of the year.
“It’s coming along,” Penigar said about his defense. “The coaches left me in at the end of the game, so they have confidence in me.
“If we played that team the first game of the year, they would’ve probably scored 50 points, but now guys aren’t scoring on me too easy,” he said.
Penigar has also been showing some improvement on the boards. In the last five games he has a total of 58 rebounds, which are more than two-thirds of his rebounds for the season, 15 games so far.
With a winning record, Penigar said he feels good about where his team is at right now, but can see room for improving.
“You look at our record and we’re 12-3, we have a lot of confidence,” Penigar said. “We’ve just got to go out there and play hard every minute of the game.”