Aggies come up short in overtime against Fresno State
Let’s start the recap of the USU Women’s Basketball game with a little Greek mythology. Remember Sisyphus? You know, the guy who endlessly pushes a boulder up a hill, never quite reaching the top of the mountain?
Well, Utah State’s latest game against Fresno State — honestly, the entire season — has felt a bit Sisyphean in nature. They’ve been pushing the boulder uphill — competing and coming within reach of victory — only for it to roll back down every time.
Head coach Wesley Brooks offered his own analogy in the postgame press conference — one you might find even more fitting.
“I asked Mia [Tarver] in practice on Tuesday, ‘What are you having for dinner?’” Brooks said. “She said, ‘Tacos.’ I said, ‘Who’s making them?’ She said, ‘I’m making the tacos.’”
He continued: “I said, ‘How do you make the tacos?’ She said, ‘Well, I got to cook them and put them in the oven.’ I said, ‘Yeah, but you have to do what?’ She said, ‘I have to make them.’ So, essentially the analogy I was trying to make was you have to make free throws. You have to make rebounds.”
Brooks kept going: “I kept saying that every timeout, ‘We got to make the tacos.’ The other thing I told them is we can’t burn the tacos. So, if you burn the tacos, that means they’re in there too long, or I forgot about them. When we miss an assignment, we burnt the tacos. When we turn the ball over, the tacos are burnt.”
Maybe you’ll read that long quote and think, “Wait, I’m still confused—what do burnt tacos have to do with basketball?” I’ll spell it out for you.
Throughout the season, the Aggies have built leads and had stretches of control on both ends of the floor, or, as Brooks would put it, they’ve made the tacos. But then, their defense fails to close out on shooters, they struggle to make shots on offense and their leads vanish in just a couple of minutes. They burn the tacos.
However, the way this game played out was a little different. Utah State failed to build a substantial lead for the first three and a half quarters. In fact, they trailed by eight points with four minutes left in the game — until they started making their tacos.
First, guard Cheyenne Stubbs knocked down a three to cut the lead to six. The Aggies then got a stop on the other end. Next, forward Taliyah Logwood hit a three to trim the lead to three. Utah State forced another Bulldogs miss, followed by a foul and two clutch free throws from forward Jamisyn Heaton. Suddenly, the Aggies trailed by just one point with a minute and a half left in the game.
All the momentum was on the Aggies’ side as the fourth quarter neared its end, but then came the crucial mistakes.
After securing another huge stop on defense, Utah State had a chance to take the lead with 22 seconds remaining. However, Stubbs, likely surprised by how wide open the Bulldogs left her, missed a freebie layup. Fresno State was then fouled and made two free throws, extending their lead to three.
The Aggies still had a chance to tie the game with 15 seconds left, but it would have to come from the three-point line. Stubbs took a three with 10 seconds remaining but missed. Center Sophie Sene positioned herself perfectly for the offensive rebound and went for the second-chance layup. Her shot missed, but the Bulldogs deflected the ball out of bounds.
Utah State now had five seconds left to attempt a three and send the game to overtime. The ball was passed to guard Carlie Latta, who used the screen and dribbled to the left wing. The Bulldogs’ defense quickly recovered off the screen and provided the perfect contest on Latta’s three as it left her hands.
Latta, being the high-IQ player she is, held the ball as she shot, staying in the air for an extra second and forcing the defender to lean into her body. The referee blew the whistle, and Latta was awarded three free throws. She sank all of them, and just like that, the game was headed to overtime.
Unfortunately, the Aggies’ perseverance ran out in overtime. A series of turnovers and defensive miscues allowed the Bulldogs to pull away with an 81-73 victory.
“We just got to find a way to win some games at the end of the day,” Brooks said. “That’s the bottom line. We did a lot of good things but not get the ultimate thing done, which is winning.”
The disappointing loss drops the Aggies’ record to 2-21, but they won’t have much time to dwell on it as they head to Colorado and California next week to face Colorado State and San Diego State.
Nonetheless, Utah State has a lot of positives to take from their most recent performance. For one, they outrebounded Fresno State 46-44, one of their better showings this season. They hit four of seven threes in the fourth quarter and shot 10-for-11 at the free throw line.
They even held a top scorer in the Mountain West Mia Jacobs to only 13 points on 3-for-12 shooting.
Had it not been for their excessive fouling and occasional lapses on defense, the Aggies would have likely escaped with the win.
Coming off her heroic play to send the game to overtime, Latta remained hopeful of the team’s future.
“Tonight gave us a little bit of confidence,” Latta said. “I know it didn’t turn out the way that we wanted, but we executed well and played how we want to be playing. If we just bring what we had this game, we have a chance to do that again.”
Utah State’s next opportunity to turn things around will come on Feb. 12 in Fort Collins when they face Colorado State.