Big Monday match-up

After a sluggish win over South Dakota State last Friday, the Utah State men’s basketball team will host Hawai’i Monday in a late game.

The contest will start at 10 p.m. because it is being aired on ESPN2.

The last time USU hosted Hawai’i in the Spectrum was March 17, 2004 during the first round of the NIT tournament. Despite the Aggies’ No. 25 ranking, the Aggies fell by 11 points to the Rainbow Wahine.

The Aggies’ first conference loss of the season came the next time USU faced Hawai’i on Dec. 17, 2005 – this time in Honolulu. The Aggies fell to the Rainbow Warriors 69-59.

“Obviously, it’s a huge game on Monday,” Nate Harris said. “We know what Hawai’i is capable of. They took pretty good care of us at their place and so we’ll be ready and the guys will respond well.”

Harris said Hawai’i was very physical with him and center Cass Matheus in last month’s game.

“It was definitely a good learning curve,” he said. “They were really physical with us, both me and Cass in the post and with everybody. They’ll probably try to do the same things to us. So we’ll be ready for that.”

The Warriors are led by Julian Sensley, who averages 16.6 points and 3.4 assists per game. Matt Lojeski and Ahmet Gueye also average 14.9 and 12.3 points respectively.

Jaycee Carroll led the Aggies with 18 points in their win over the Jackrabbits. Carroll’s streak of 19 consecutive double-digit scoring games came to an end the game before against Nevada where he only had seven points.

Despite his recent struggles in shooting, Carroll still ranks first in the WAC and 17th in the nation in 3-point shooting with a percentage of 45.5.

If USU beats Hawai’i, it will be the 400th win for Stew Morrill as a Division-I head coach. He would be the 117th coach – 27th active – to reach that mark.

The Aggies are now on a league-best 13-game home winning streak. After Friday’s win, Morrill improved to 108-9 in the Spectrum.

Utah State has won its last five-straight games and 10 of its last 11.

Also, USU has won 17 of its last 19 games that were televised by the ESPN network.

-bhhinton@cc.usu.edu