Defense helps USU to NCAA, Big West wins
Defense sustained the Aggies to their second straight Big West Conference championship and helped them “make some noise,” as point guard Bernard Rock said, in the NCAA Tournament – something they didn’t do last year as they lost to defending national champion University of Connecticut in the first round of the tournament.
Though Ohio State University exceeded the Aggies’ usual average for points allowed (57), it was defense that led to the win, both in the containment of OSU center Ken Johnson and limiting the Buckeyes to only eight points in the overtime period while they scored 17 themselves.
USU’s defense gave OSU fits during the whole game. The Aggies forced the Buckeyes into 21 turnovers while only committing five themselves. USU scored 21 points off those turnovers. USU also held OSU’s Johnson to one shot attempt in the second half.
After USU’s 50-38 victory over the University of the Pacific in the Big West Championship Game, Pacific head coach Bob Thomason praised the USU defense.
“I’m going to learn how to play defense like them,” he said.
“I’m not sure I’ve had a group of young men buy into defense like these guys have,” said USU head coach Stew Morrill. “That was the whole difference for us in the [Big West] tournament, to turn up our defense a notch.”
The Aggies limited all three opponents in the BWC Tournament to fewer than 50 points, marking the first time since the 1949-50 season USU has held opponents to that low of scoring for three straight games.
Morrill said he has harped all year on keeping opponents under 40 percent shooting. USU did that in the tournament, holding Cal-State Fullerton to 30.5 percent Thursday, BSU to 36.2 and Pacific to 34.
It was when the Aggies didn’t achieve their 40 percent goal that they lost. Allowing UCLA to shoot 55.4 percent from the floor while shooting only 28.3 percent themselves led to the Aggies’ exit from the NCAA Tournament.
In its semifinal game against Boise State University in the Big West Tournament, the Aggies were down 48-47, with 11:58 to go but held the Bronco’s scoreless the rest of the way, winning by a score of 67-48.
The championship game with Pacific was no different. The Aggies held the Tigers scoreless from the 7:30 mark in the first half until Pacific’s Jono Metzger-Jones tipped one in at the buzzer going into halftime.
USU point guard Bernard Rock said before the tournament that good defense helps shots on the other end start falling. That was true for Aggie forward Curtis Bobb Friday against BSU.
Bobb drew the assignment of guarding the Broncos’ leading scorer, Abe Jackson. According to Bobb, his goal that night was just to shut down Jackson and not worry about scoring. Bobb held Jackson to uncharacteristic 4-for-15 shooting that night and racked up the game-high score with 17 points.