Aggies fall apart in second half to No. 14 Georgetown
Aggie Head Coach Stew Morrill might be rethinking whether to schedule guarantee games anymore.
Senior guard Chris Wright scored 21 points on 6-of-9 shooting to lead the No. 16 Georgetown Hoyas over the Utah State Aggies Saturday, 68-51. Everything went wrong that could have possibly gone wrong for the Aggies, but turnovers and stagnant offense doomed the Aggies from the start of the second half.
“Georgetown is obviously good and obviously very talented, but I was disappointed that we didn’t play smarter,” Morrill said. “I didn’t think we played a very smart game. We hung in for a half and we were keeping ourselves close mixing our defenses, running a little time and some of those kinds of things. We never had an opportunity to do much of that in the second half, the game was really over about five or six minutes in.”
The Aggies uncharacteristically committed 15 turnovers, and many of those turnovers were caused by a Georgetown press similar to what the Aggies see almost every game.
“It’s a three-quarters-court press,” senior guard Tyler Newbold said. “We see that a lot, and for some reason we didn’t handle it the way we needed to. They do have athletic guys; that’s part of the problem. We’re a good basketball team too, and if we’re playing the way we can and are mentally tough and taking care of the ball, we shouldn’t have as much of a problem with that kind of thing.”
Morrill said, “That’s one of our problems, not being very smart. We’ve always been a good assist-to-turnover ratio team, but we’re not right now. We’ll get better, but as an experienced of a team as we’ve got, you’d think we’d take a little bit better care of the ball.”
Not playing smart also caused the Aggies to get into foul trouble, and the Hoyas were able to capitalize as they shot 20-of-27 from the charity stripe. The Aggies were only 4-of-8 from the free-throw line.
For the second consecutive game, Aggie senior forward Tai Wesley found himself in foul trouble. Against Denver the senior forward only scored seven points in 27 minutes of play, and against Georgetown Wesley scored eight points in 20 minutes of play and fouled out with just more than 10 minutes remaining in the game.
“How many points and minutes did Tai Wesley get on this trip?” Morrill said. “That’s ridiculous. You’re a fifth-year senior. Stay on the floor.”
The Aggies were able to keep things close in the first half and even held the lead a few times. USU led 13-10 midway through the first half when sophomore guard E.J Farris fouled Hoyas junior guard Jason Clark on a 3-point attempt. Clark would hit all three free-throws to spur a 12-0 run that put the Hoyas up for good.
Senior forward Pooh Williams nailed a 3-pointer at the end of the first half to bring the Aggies within four points, but that is as close as the Aggies would get to the Hoyas. The Hoyas started the second half on a 15-2 run in the first seven minutes to put the game completely out of reach.
“In the second half they hit us in the mouth at the beginning of the half, and we laid an egg,” Newbold said. “We didn’t respond and you get too far down in another team’s building like this and it’s going to be hard to come back.”
Morrill said, “We didn’t play well enough in the second half to even give ourselves a chance. Credit them, their speed, their size all that bothered us, but we’ve got to play better than that.”
Does a guarantee-game like this help out the Aggies in the future?
“I’m not sure of that,” Morrill said. “If we can get back to the NCAA Tournament, at least we have experienced this type of athleticism, but to come in here, you get beat and they’re not coming back. That’s the danger of not getting a return game. I’m not sure. Maybe it is. For some people it is. Once in a while, what does it hurt to get a game like this?”
Newbold said, “Hopefully games like this will definitely help us. We better continue to learn from games like this. Understand that we’re not that great right now. We gotta continue to practice, continue to get better and continue to improve if we want to get where we want to be this year.”
The Aggies now prepare for the Long Beach State 49ers at home on Tuesday. The Aggies lost to the 49ers on the road last season, 75-62, and the Aggies will be looking for more revenge against the 49ers.
Tip-off against the 49ers is slated for 7:05 p.m. in the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum.
For a full preview of Tuesday’s game against Long Beach State, visit www.usustatesman.com.
– ty.d.hus@aggiemail.usu.edu