Ag basketball tie best start, sweep Calif. road trip
In a rematch of last year’s Big West Conference Championship game, Utah State took on Cal Poly Saturday night in San Luis Obispo, Calif. with similar results – a 69-63 Aggie victory.
“On the road we have to come together even more as a team,” Aggie center Mike Ahmad said. “At home we have our fans and our support. But on the road it’s just us – the Aggies.”
With the win, the Ags improved to 11-1, 3-0 in BWC play, and tied the 1934-35 and 1938-39 teams for the best start in school history. Cal Poly fell to 6-6 on the season, and 1-3 in conference games.
Despite a 20-point performance by Varnie Dennis and an 18-point, six assist night from Kameron Gray, USU was able to complete its first road sweep since its February 2002 victories over Long Beach State and UC Irvine.
“[Cal Poly] is very scary,” said Aggie Head Coach Stew Morrill. “Schilling can go off. Varnie can go off. Kameron Gray can go off. We just hung tough and found a way down the stretch.”
The game, which was played in front of a sold-out crowd of 3,032 in Mott Gymnasium, was tied at 54 with 5:34 remaining, before the Aggies went on a 15-9 run down the stretch.
“Keeping the game down in the 60s was to our advantage,” Morrill said. “The crowd didn’t have as many opportunities to get going as they would have in an 80-point game.”
Ahmad led the way for the Aggies, scoring 16 points on 8-of-9 shooting and pulling down six rebounds.
“We really had some guys step up and play tonight,” Morrill said. “Mike Ahmad was very good. He was convinced that he was going to show Varnie that he can play a little bit, too, and that was huge.”
With 15 points and a season-high 13 rebounds, Aggie forward Spencer Nelson recorded his second double-double of the season on Saturday night.
Cardell Butler, who leads the Ags in scoring with 15.1 points per game, was held to only seven points. Butler, however, recorded a career-high six assists.
“We all love to win, and none of the guys on this team are selfish,” Ahmad said. “If somebody scores 40 points and somebody scores zero, we’re not mad about that as long as we get the win and play together.”
Despite a slow first half, during which senior guard Mark Brown split time with Chris Huber, Brown finished the game with 14 points and four assists.
“They were pressuring him,” Morrill said. “They were getting into him and causing him some problems. Mark came back in and really started playing well, and we needed him to come in and make some big shots.”
Early in the game Cal Poly was able to go inside to Dennis almost at will.
“Varnie’s a tough guy to guard,” Ahmad said. “He’s a wide individual. He’s strong and he’s heavy. Our energy wasn’t as high as it should have been.”
Over the course of the game Morrill’s squad went almost exclusively to a three-quarter court pressure, a system he calls a 32-12 zone defense.
“We just felt like we might be able to control tempo that way,” Morrill said. “They’re not a great three-point shooting team. They get the ball to Varnie in either man or zone but sometimes it’s a little harder in zone.”
The Ags were the beneficiaries of quality bench production from Nate Harris, Chad Evans and Huber. Harris led the bench in scoring with six points and two rebounds. Cal Poly, who was without guard Eric Jackson, struggled to get anything from the reserves and finished with only two bench points.
“They are playing some guys a lot of minutes and it appeared that a few guys got a little worn down,” Morrill said. “I was determined in the first half to get guys adequate rest, because I knew in the second half we may have to keep guys out there a little bit longer. I thought the rests helped us. We had more energy down the stretch.”
The Aggies head back to Logan where they will take on Pacific (4-0) for first place in the Big West Thursday night in the Spectrum.
“We’ll be ready and we’ll be at home,” Ahmad said. “We’re going to come ready to play and the fans will be there to heckle them.”
-acf@cc.usu.edu