Aggies fall to Fresno in Las Vegas to end the season
After a hard-fought game against Fresno State, the Utah State women’s basketball team lost to the Bulldogs, 55-47, in the second round of the Mountain West tournament on Tuesday in Las Vegas.
The Aggies led for the majority of the second and third quarters, but with a USU scoring drought lasting more than six minutes in the fourth quarter, Fresno took the lead and kept it for good.
Utah State struggled to adjust to the pressure from Fresno State, though that pressure was nothing new to this team that has faced the Bulldogs three times in the past 18 days.
“We knew their game plan coming into it,” said USU sophomore guard Funda Nakkasoglu. “We’re pretty familiar with everything they were going to do. They’re very post-oriented, we tried to guard that as well as we could.”
Thirty-one of Fresno State’s 55 points came from their posts tonight. Sophomore center Bego Faz Davalos led the Bulldogs with 23 points and 12 rebounds.
“That was probably the frustrating part of the game because we knew the moves (Davalos) was making, and she still made them,” said head coach Jerry Finkbeiner. “As a sophomore on that junior-senior team she’s a huge ingredient of their success these last 10 games.”
Faz Davalos was recently named the Mountain West defensive player of the year. Her defense and that of her teammates forced 21 turnovers from the Aggies.
Nakkasoglu led Utah State with 16 points, followed by Rachel Brewster with nine points and Deja Mason with six.
Mason was taken out after her fourth foul early in the fourth quarter. According to Finkbeiner, that was a turning point for the game. After that moment, USU had an overthrown pass out of the paint and a travel at half court on consecutive possessions and later a step on the baseline that ended another Aggie possession. The turnovers put USU in a slump they didn’t break. In the last five minutes, the Bulldogs out-scored the Aggies 10-3.
Fresno’s head coach Jaime White joked after the game as she saw Nakkasoglu’s “low” 16 points because she focused her press around stopping her.
“She’s so good and really crafty. And we knew if we guarded her away from the basket we would have a better chance of stopping her,” White said.
She and the Bulldogs were also impressed with freshmen Rachel Brewster and Katie Toole, who ended the game with 10 rebounds, and surprised with their overall improvement this season.
“I don’t think I’m too excited about playing them next year,” said White of the Aggies young team. “I hope we only play them once, at home.”
Utah State ended the season 13-17, 8-11 in the Mountain West.
– paige.a.cavaness@aggiemail.usu.edu
Twitter: @ususportspaige