Brown steps up in senior role, quietly leads Aggies
Utah State University basketball public address announcer Rob Flygare affectionately calls him “Downtown Tony Brown” after the Aggie guard drains a three-point basket from beyond the arc.
The senior out of Mountain Crest High School in Hyrum doesn’t necessarily enjoy the attention.
After winning the Most Valuable Player award in the eighth annual Gossner Foods Classic in December, Brown listed nearly every teammate as possible contenders for the award.
“It’s good, but I think you could’ve given it to Jeremy Vague,” Brown said. “He played outstanding.”
Brown may not think he deserved the award, but Head Coach Stew Morrill thinks differently.
“It’s nice to see him recognized and certainly he deserved to be MVP of the tournament,” Morrill said. “No matter what’s going on in the game he’s comfortable, he’s confident, he knows what to do and he knows what’s happening in the game at all times.”
And to further back up why he was qualified for the award, just look at his stats. In general, talking about Brown is like regurgitating a record book.
Brown recorded a season-high four steals against Centenary in the second game of the Classic. For the season, Brown came away with a season-high 26 points against Cal Poly, a game in which Brown teamed up with forward Desmond Penigar for 49 of the team’s 58 total points.
Brown also moved into first place on USU’s all-time three-point list against the Mustangs with 238 treys. He also leads the Aggies all-time in three’s attempted (582).
Against BYU, he finished with a career-high 10 assists and a then season-high 20 points, receiving his first double-double ever.
The list could go on and on and on.
“I’ve been trying to mix up my game a little more,” Brown said. “I know everybody plays me for a shooter before I’m a driver. There’s a couple times where [defenders] are up in me and I just got to go make a play. If I just pass it, they’re going to keep getting in me. So I got to back them off by taking it to the basket once in a while.”
Not only is he mixing up his shooting, he’s out on the court doing everything.
“I don’t know if I took it upon myself,” Brown said after scoring 20 points and coming away with four rebounds and three assists to help the struggling Aggies come back from a first-half slump to defeat the Cal State Northridge Matadors 73-56 on Dec. 20 in the Spectrum.
Leading the team in his silent way is just something Brown is good at, Morrill said. He goes out there and does what he knows needs to be done.
“The thing about Tony is [while] some guys might go on their own to make a play and you cringe, with him you feel like something good is going to happen,” Morrill said. “He’s an old-time, church league/city league-type player. You gotta love it. You gotta love all that clever stuff he does.”
Equally important as his current success is, is how Brown has improved throughout his career at Utah State.
“Tony Brown has gotten a lot better every year,” Morrill said. “Look at his career – he is a classic example of just working on your game and becoming better in all aspects of your game.”
The team’s only returning starter this season, Brown has had the honor of being on the floor at tip off in 81 games.
As a freshman, Brown averaged 11 points per game and earned all-freshman team honors.
In his sophomore campaign, he was an honorable all-Big West selection and earned Big West Conference Player of the Week honors.
Last season, Brown was named a second-team all-Big West player. He was also named Conference Player of the Week and was the team’s second leading scorer at 11.7 points a game. Brown drained the 8-foot jumper over the Big Ten Conference all-time leading shot blocker Ken Johnson of Ohio State that sent USU to the second round of the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 31 years.
Most recently, the guy who shies away from attention was named Big West Player of the Week after the Aggies’ Gossner Championship victory.
“We are going to have nights where we can’t only rely on Tony or Desmond,” Morrill said. “[Brown] is playing very confident [right now], knock on wood.”