Hot-shooting Air Force knock out Aggies early in MW tourney

The Air Force Falcons got back at the Utah State women’s basketball team, avenging a first-round loss in the Mountain West tournament last year by beating the Aggies 68-54 in this year’s opening tournament game.

It was a battle of the eighth and ninth seeds as both teams finished with the same conference record, but it looked more like a game of girls vs women, with the Aggies on the wrong side of the matchup.

Both teams started off 5-5 from the field in the first quarter, but the Falcons kept their momentum up as the Aggies faded back toward the mean on offense.

Air Force came into the game as the worst shooting team in the Mountain West, but shot 60.9 percent from the field in the first half. Olivia West said the Falcons made some lucky shots, but the team’s defense could have been better.

“It was difficult because it was unexpected,” West said of the having to guard the hot-shooting Falcons. “But I think that part of that good shooting was our lack of defensive effort.”

Though the Falcons were seemingly unstoppable on offense, the Aggies made it easier for Air Force to build up a lead by committing numerous bad turnovers. USU had 18 on the night, 13 of which were steals on poor or flat-out lazy passes.

Though the Falcons eventually regressed offensively, shooting 44 percent from the field in the second half, Utah State was entirely helpless on offense in both halves outside of the first three minutes. Part of it was because they seemed to only have one method of scoring: get the ball into the paint and shoot.

In the second half, the Aggies made just one basket outside of the paint — a 3-pointer made by Olivia West with 1:35 to go with the game long out of reach. With such an emphasis on interior scoring, Utah State outscored the Falcons in the paint 36-24, but were very inefficient when they got there. As a team they shot on 13-23 on layups while the Falcons were 11-13 inside the paint.

Utah State Woman’s Basketball play Air Force in Los Vegas in the Mountain West Tournament on Monday March 5th. USU lost 68 to 54.

“We missed a lot of layups and those hurt, they’re just like turnovers,” Finkbeiner said. “They’re deflating emotionally and they’re deflating with our gameplan and then as we got into that hole we had to do the adjustments and Air Force stayed with their gameplan.”

Part of Utah State’s struggles did come from some bad luck before the game. Shortly before tip-off, sophomore forward Shannon Dufficy was ruled out with an ACL sprain. Dufficy was the leading rebounder for the Aggies at 8.2 per game. She was also the fourth-leading scorer at 7.9 points per game.

Finkbeiner said losing Dufficy made USU go through an “emotional transition” whereas Air Force was ready to go and were “sharp from the opening tip.”

The Falcons had three players that scored more than USU’s leading scorer. Dee Bennett had 14 with Emily Conroe and Kaelin Immel both tallying 18.

Eliza West was the focal point of the offense in the first half, with six points and four assists in the opening two frames. But it was Olivia West who took over in the fourth quarter. Olivia went 4-4 in the fourth quarter and scored 11 of her team-leading 13 points.