USU gets a win in battle of Aggies

In a critical Western Athletic Conference match-up Saturday night, the Utah State Aggies luckily didn’t need a monstrous point output from Jaycee Carroll.

Rather, big man Gary Wilkinson’s 18 points and Stephen DuCharme’s 13, along with fuel from the rest of USU’s bench, propelled the hosts to a 74-62 victory over the New Mexico State Aggies (9-10, 3-1 in WAC).

“It’s interesting in a ball game like that the two first-team all-league players don’t have their best night,” Utah State head coach Stew Morrill said. “It happens sometimes.”

Carroll finished with 15 points on 5-of-16 shooting. The other player Morrill was referring to is NMSU’s Justin Hawkins.

Hawkins, a transfer from the University of Utah, braved students’ chants of “Utah reject!” en route to seven points on 3-of-12 shooting from the field. Hawkins came in averaging 18.7 points per game.

Utah State improved to 12-5 and 2-0 in the WAC and has won 25 of their past 26 home contests.

New Mexico State first-year head coach Marvin Menzies said his goal was to hold Carroll to under 33 percent, which his team did.

“But (USU) had great support from role guys,” Menzies said. “That’s how you get it done.”

Utah State had 26 bench points compared to NMSU’s five.

The game was closer than the final score might indicate.

At the 7:01 mark of the second half, Utah State junior Desmond Stephens gave his team their biggest lead of the night with a 3-pointer to make the score 60-48.

NMSU responded powerfully with three straight 3-pointers, forced USU to turn the ball over, and then was able to have Utah State big man Tai Wesley commit his fourth foul with 4:58 remaining.

The NewMags’ Fred Peete then drained another 3-ball to tie the game with 4:49 to go.

Utah State didn’t back down, but responded as Kris Clark hit a jumper on the next possession. On its following possession, DuCharme swooshed a jumper. Wesley took a charge on the other end, followed by two DuCharme free throws and a DuCharme layup on a fast break. After all that, USU had a seven-point advantage with 2:29 left.

NMSU never came closer.

“(NMSU) did a really good job mixing their defense and getting us out of sorts offensively,” Morrill said. “They played box-and-one, a little bit of zone, a little bit of man. They would start in man, drop to zone, drop to box-and-one, and it caused us some problems. That’s a credit to them. We started to get comfortable and had some careless turnovers. Their game plan was very solid.”

In the first half, the Aggies gained a 16-6 advantage by the 13:41 mark-their largest to that point.

NMSU forced turnovers on the hosts to go on an 11-0 run midway through the half and take a 21-20 lead.

Utah State was relentless, getting rebounds off NMSU missed shots to go on an 11-2 run of their own and take a 35-25 lead into the locker room. The NewMags ended the half with a paltry 34.1 percent from the field and 7.1 percent from 3-point range.

“Good teams are going to make runs, and they did on us a couple times,” DuCharme said. “They came pretty close and almost took the lead.”

The score was tied three times in the game, and the lead changed twice.

-samuel.hislop@aggiemail.usu.edu