Aggies back to winning ways
With Thursday night’s 69-58 victory over Cal State Northridge, the Utah State men’s basketball squad created school history and healed its wounds.
After all, USU didn’t want to have a lackluster showing in front of Big West Conference Commissioner Dennis Farrell, who was visiting Logan for Thursday’s game.
The Aggies (20-8, 11-6 in Big West play) notched their fourth-straight 20-win season, a new school record, and secured third place for the Big West Conference tournament next weekend in Anaheim, Calif.
“We always mark our wins,” said fifth-year Aggie Head Coach Stew Morrill. “There is a lot of teams around the country that would like to have 20 wins. We need to feel good about that.
“We needed this one really bad,” he said.
It was a little bit of lotion for USU’s severely dried skin, caused by the two-game losing streak it brought into the game.
But the win didn’t come easy for the Aggies. Each time the USU built a seemingly secure lead, Northridge battled back.
The Matadors, led by small forward Ian Boylan (22 points, three steals, 2-2 from three), didn’t come within six points of USU’s lead for the final 27:10 of the ballgame.
After falling behind by a game-high deficit of 14 points when Cardell Butler was fouled on a dunk (his team-high 16th of the season) and drained the ensuing free-throw, the Matadors began chipping away at USU’s lead.
With 8:55 remaining in the second half, Matador power forward Armand Thomas hit two free-throws, cutting his team’s deficit to six points, 50-44.
On the next play, Boylan committed his fourth foul and was pulled from the game. The Aggies took advantage of this, putting in a 5-1 spurt for a 10 point lead until Boylan returned at the 5:51 mark.
From this point on, USU maintained a seven-point lead until Northridge guard Sergei Lepiashinski (five points on 2-of-5 shooting) swished a three-point shot with 1:09 left, pulling the Matadors within six again, 64-58.
Aggie small forward Toraino Johnson (eight points, five rebounds) produced USU’s final four points, connecting on his only four free-throws of the game.
The win ends the Aggies’ unusual and unprecedented skid. USU has not lost three straight games since 1999, and have failed to lose back-to-back home games since the 1992-93 season, when it fell to UNLV and New Mexico State.
“Things are looking up right now,” said USU forward Desmond Penigar, who along with teammate Ronnie Ross had a team-high 17 points. “We did what was needed to win in the second half. We came out aggressive and enthusiastic about playing this game.”
Which is the exact opposite of how the Aggies looked and felt in their past two games.
“We’re in a good state of mind and we were trying like hell,” Morrill said.
The Matadors (13-14, 7-10) made 54 percent of their shots in the second half, but struggled at the foul line, hitting only 61 percent of their free throws.
“I thought we played very poorly in the first half,” said CSN Head Coach Bobby Braswell. “We were very tentative, which really surprised me.
“I thought in the second half we were a lot more aggressive and did some things better offensively,” he said. “We cut the lead down to six and had some opportunities.”
–samhis@cc.usu.edu