Utah State drops first game of season to Arizona State, falls to 5-1

Utah State men’s basketball fell to 5-1 after losing 87-82 in the championship game of the MGM Resorts Main Event Wednesday to Arizona State.

Freshman Luguentz Dort led the Sun Devils with 33 points while junior Sam Merrill led the Aggies with 27 points. Senior Dwayne Brown Jr. also added 15 points for Utah State.

Utah State was crippled with foul trouble in the first half with Merrill and freshman Neemias Queta picking up two fouls each early in the half. Queta played just six minutes in the half due to his two fouls.

Brown Jr. said Arizona State’s size was hard for the Aggies to guard on defense, which led to some of the foul trouble.

“They’re very aggressive. They play very athletic,” Brown Jr. said. “They’re a huge team and it shows on the court.”

The Aggies led for much of the half until Arizona State took a lead late with just under four minutes left. The Sun Devils went into halftime with a 37-35 lead after shooting 14 more free-throws and making eight more than Utah State. Dort would finish the half with 14 points for Arizona State.

Brown said that the referees were favoring either team at times, but the team needed to push through it.

“We can’t play the ref game,” Brown said. “We gotta play hard and play defense.”

Utah State started the second half strong, gaining a three-point lead after layup from sophomore John Knight III. The lead would be the Aggies largest of the second half. Arizona State retook the lead less than one minute later. The Sun Devils led the rest of the game.

Head coach Craig Smith said the youth of the Aggies hurt them in tonight’s game.

“We were a half a step behind at times. Then, they used our momentum against us at times,” Smith said. “When you play a team like that where your margin for error is not great, you don’t ever need to be perfect, but we had two mini ruts there. One in the first half and one in the second half where we just lost our attack mode on offense and then we were on our heels defensively.”

Arizona State pushed its lead to nine points with just under 10 minutes left in the game, tied for the largest deficit that Utah State faced this season. The Aggies cut the lead to three points with 4:11 remaining in the game but were unable to close the gap any further.

Utah State was forced to foul down the stretch and Arizona State kept making free-throws to keep the Aggies at bay. The Sun Devils finished the game shooting 28-42 for 66.7 percent from the free-throw line.

Smith said he is proud of the way his team played during the tournament.

“We’re sitting here at 5-1 with one of the least experienced groups and played some good competition,” Smith said. “Now we’ll have a chance to regroup a little bit and have a week to prepare for good Northern Iowa team and really fine-tune some things.”

Brown said the team is trying to prove that Utah State is back as a good team in college basketball.

“We are really here to prove that Utah State is back with the Spectrum magic,” Brown said.

Utah State is now 9-6 all-time against Arizona State. The Aggies look forward to their next game against Northern Iowa Wednesday in the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum.