BYU snaps streak in the Spectrum
Utah State’s 29-game winning streak against in-state teams ended Tuesday against BYU.
Lead by senior guard Tyler Haws’ 35 points, the Cougars dealt the Aggies just their second home loss to a team from Utah under head coach Stew Morrill in his entire history with the team.
The game wasn’t without its bright spots for the Aggies, as junior guard Chris Smith filled the stat line with 25 points on seven-of-10 shooting, including three for five from beyond the arc. Smith added three rebounds, four assists and one steal, all while hitting eight of his nine foul shots.
“We just didn’t get it going at the right time,” Smith said after the loss. “We relaxed and weren’t playing our best. They’re a tough team. We just need to learn how to play hard the whole game, and we’ll be able to take it.”
USU lead 32-31 after one half of basketball but suffered from an offensive drought spanning nearly seven minutes in the second half, a fact that did not escape Morrill.
“I thought it was a good game for about the first 30 minutes,” Morrill said. “We really got in trouble with consistency. We hit a spell of about six or seven minutes where we played really poorly on both ends of the floor. We turned it over, and we couldn’t rebound. That period was the difference in the game, and that’s unfortunate.”
In that span, the Cougars outscored the home team 14-1 to take a 58-48 lead, which they held the remainder of the game.
“It’s a tough loss. We always want to beat BYU,” said sophomore wing Jalen Moore. “For about seven minutes or so we weren’t rebounding. We weren’t playing very good defense, and we couldn’t get anything to fall.”
Junior guard Darius Perkins contributed a career-best 21 points on eight-of-12 shooting, scoring several baskets late to cut BYU’s lead to single digits. The Cougars hit all 14 of their foul shots in the final 1:32 to earn their first victory in the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum since Jan. 8, 2000.
The game drew a sellout crowd of 10,270 and was BYU’s first trip to Logan since they fell to USU 69-62 in 2011.
Known for being a hostile environment, the Spectrum grew in intensity early in the second half after sophomore guard JoJo McGlaston chased down and fouled Haws on a breakaway basket. Haws responded immediately by springing up and confronting McGlaston on the baseline, directly in front of the heart of the Aggie student section. Both players were issued technical fouls.
“He’s a great player,” Smith said. “He really knows how to get guys in foul trouble.”
Haws finished the night with a game high 35 points on 10-of-19 shooting, missing only one of his 13 free throw attempts.
“We have to get more consistent if we’re going to stay in games with that caliber of a team,” Morrill said. “Hopefully we’ll keep our heads up. That was the main thing we talked about tonight. It doesn’t do us any good to keep our heads down. Let’s just try and get better.”
The Aggies are back in action Sunday in Los Angeles against USC at 3 p.m. MT.
— logantjones@aggiemail.usu.edu
Twitter: @logantj