Jalen Moore urges Aggies to tournament win
A 47-point first half carried Utah State to an 88-70 first-round win over Wyoming in Las Vegas on Wednesday.
The big first half isn’t something new for the Aggies.
Utah State led at the half in nine Mountain West games this season and only won two. The first was at San Jose State and second at Colorado State. In the other eight games, USU has allowed a large run to start the second half and ended up losing a close finish.
First-year head coach Tim Duryea commented on the trend throughout the season.
“You have to avoid beating yourself before you can beat your opponent,” Duryea said on March 5 after a loss to Fresno when the Aggies led at the half. “That was a first-class lesson on how to beat yourself, in every conceivable way … It’s been a frustrating year with some frustrating losses.”
The story had a chance to play out again, this time in the MW tournament.
“It was frustrating for me and the rest of the team,” said junior wing Jalen Moore. “We know we had games that we should win. This game was kind of turning out the same way. We put an end to their run and were able to go up by too many points.”
Utah State built a 25 point lead in the first half and held a 17-point lead at halftime. The Aggies allowed the Cowboys to scrape back into the game and cut the deficit to seven with 9:46 remaining before they pulled on the reins and halted the run.
“We’ve been in too many games like this where we had the lead and at the end we ended up losing,” Moore said. “I couldn’t let that happen again, so I was trying to do what I could to get the win at the end.”
Moore was the catalyst for USU’s success in pulling away late in the game. At the 13 minute mark in the second half, WYO cut the lead to eight, Moore hit a free-throw line jumper and a 3-pointer on back-to-back possessions.
“It was an eight-point game,” Moore said. “We couldn’t get anything going for a little span on offense. I was just trying to take the team over and hit the shots we needed to. I was able to do that. I just couldn’t let our team lose this game.”
Then, when Wyoming cut it to seven, Moore answered again with an offensive rebound, a layup and on the next possession a dime to an open Shane Rector who drilled a corner 3.
“I really saw no signs of panic whatsoever,” Duryea said. “We had talked about it, there’s going to be a run … I did see Jalen have a really just calm look in his eye, he played at a great pace, got to his shot, jumped up and knocked it in.”
Rector contributed to the effort with a career high 24 points in his first start as an Aggie. Chris Smith had 20 and Julion Pearre chipped in 14 off the bench to help Utah State shake off the poor second-half results.
– kalen.s.taylor@gmail.com
Twitter: @kalen_taylor