Women’s Basketball Makes History in Home Win Over Northern New Mexico
In their first regular season home game of the year, the Utah State women’s basketball team successfully defended home-court against the Northern New Mexico Eagles, winning the game 106-35 and improving to 2-0 on the young season.
The game was distinctly one-sided, as the contest began with a 10-2 Aggie run, and Utah State never let up, finishing the first half with a 34-point lead, 47-14.
Northern New Mexico was unable to stop Utah State’s offense at any point during the contest, the Aggies moving wherever they wanted to on the court which led to 22 first-half points in the paint and shooting better than 50% from the floor.
On the other end, the Eagles’ offense was consistently stymied by a suffocating USU defensive effort. In addition to nine first-half steals–which led to 14 Aggie points– junior forward Marlene Aniambossou also forced two Eagle offensive fouls.
The non-competitive half allowed USU head coach Jerry Finkbeiner to spread around minutes and give ten different Aggie players time on the court; his faith in them was well-founded as all ten scored during the game.
“We had some really good individual things start to percolate up which I hope in the weeks to come and the months to come become a foundation and an expected result,” Finkbeiner said of the offense.
Play in the second half was much the same as the first. Utah State continued to dominate on both ends of the floor with their stout defense leading to quick offense. An Aniambossou bucket late in the fourth pushed USU past the 100-point mark for the first time since the 2013-14 season, and the final score of 106 was the most points scored in a game since a win in 1979-80 against Northern Arizona, 110-93.
“It feels great. It’s really encouraging and motivating like if we keep putting work in,” said Utah State freshman guard Steph Gorman of the high-scoring game. “We can do stuff like this again.”
Northern New Mexico’s point total of 35 was also the fewest points allowed by an Aggie defense since the 2015-16 season in a game against Nevada.
Even more historic still was the margin of victory of 71 points, the largest differential in Utah State women’s basketball history.
The Aggie defense was led by junior guard Olivia West who was a terror in the opponent’s backcourt, picking the opposing ball-handlers’ pocket multiple times and finishing with four steals on the game.
USU junior forward Hailey Bassett-Meacham was again another key contributor, scoring 18 points on 12 shots in just 17 minutes of action.
Aniambossou, West, Shannon Dufficy, Rachel Brewster, and Steph Gorman tallied double-digit point totals for the Aggies.
Even after the promising undefeated start, the Aggies will have to prove themselves in the toughest game of their season Wednesday at 7 p.m. in the Spectrum against the No. 3 Oregon Ducks.
“I don’t think there is a higher ranked men or women’s team sport to come into Cache Valley,” Finkbeiner said. “The Oregon game on Wednesday night will be a standard for us for the rest of the year. We won’t play anybody better than this team… Oregon is one of those games we circle on our calendar.”