Aggie Notebook
Battle of the Boards
Prior to Saturday night’s game, Aggie players and coaches talked about how over their nine-day break without a game, one of the skills the team focused on was rebounding. That was evident Saturday night as Utah State out-rebounded the Western Athletic Conference’s No. 1 rebounding team. Utah State won the battle of the boards 41-40.
“We beat them on the boards,” forward Stephen DuCharme said after the game. “By one board.”
Head coach Stew Morrill echoed DuCharme.
“We rebounded with them even, plus one, actually,” Morrill said. “And that’s huge for us, with their ability to rebound.”
Coming into the game, New Mexico State held a plus 6.6 rebound advantage over its opponents.
“Our big guys rebounded the ball,” Morrill said.
Big man Gary Wilkinson led the way for Utah State with eight rebounds, with freshman Tai Wesley and DuCharme each recording seven boards apiece. It wasn’t just the big men who were hitting the boards either, as Utah State’s guards got into the act as well. Senior guard Jaycee Carroll continued his impressive rebounding by pulling down seven himself. What was a surprise is that backup point guard Desmond Stephens pulled down five boards.
“Ya, I got the long boards,” Stephens said with a laugh. “We’ve been practicing on the boards all week.”
Bench Play
For the game, Utah State’s bench outscored New Mexico State in scoring 26-5.
“We had some other guys step up,” Morrill said.
DuCharme led the way for the northern Aggies’ bench, as he scored 13 points on 5-of-7 shooting in 25 minutes of play. DuCharme was called upon early and often, as Wesley, the starter, struggled with fouls all night. DuCharme said he was just doing his job.
“I’ll do whatever,” DuCharme said. “I’m comfortable with my role.”
Stephens made the most of his minutes, as he scored nine points and recorded two assists in 12 minutes of play. All of his points came off of 3-pointers in the second half.
“Desmond is a really good point guard and he can stroke it,” DuCharme said. “He hit some pretty big threes when we needed them most.”
Two of Stephens’s 3-pointers acted as New Mexico State run-stoppers. After going on a 12-2 run to close the gap to 43-42, Stephens hit a three with just under 13 minutes to play to extend the Utah State lead back to four. A couple minutes later, with just under 11 minutes left, Stephens hit another three after New Mexico had tied the score at 46.
“I thought Desmond was huge in the second half,” Morrill said.
“Whenever coach tells me to go in, I have to go in and do my job,” Stephens said.
Record Watch
With Saturday’s win, Morrill tied legendary coach E. Lowell Romney for the most wins in school history with 225. Morrill had no intentions of talking about any records, especially since he just tied a record and didn’t break it.
“We’ll talk about that if the record is broken,” Morrill said after the game. “We won’t talk about it tonight.”
Carroll is now 31 points shy of tying the all-time scoring record held by Greg Grant, who recorded 2,127 points.
Morrill, who was quick to take the attention off of himself, said he hopes that the two will break the wins and scoring record on the same night.
“The good thing is maybe Jaycee will break the record at the same time,” Morrill said with a smile. “Then we can just talk about him.”
sam.bryner@aggiemail.usu.edu