Aggies begin season on positive note
Despite trailing by 12 points with just under 10 minutes remaining, the Utah State University men’s basketball team pulled things together to finish with the 79-74 overtime victory against EA Sports Friday night in the Spectrum.
EA Sports fell to 0-2 on the season. The team suffered a 72-67 loss to the University of Utah Thursday night in Salt Lake.
“It was pretty ugly out there,” USU Head Coach Stew Morrill said. “We have a lot of new guys and that is what is to be expected. Anybody that expects anything much different is not very realistic. It is going to take this team a while.”
Junior forward Tony Brown, the only returning Aggie starter from last season’s Big West Tournament Champions, led USU with 28 points on nine of 13 shooting, including five of eight from beyond the arc.
With less than three seconds remaining in the game and EA Sports up 69-67, sophomore forward Chad Evans was fouled on a rebound, giving him two free throws.
Evans made both baskets, sending the game into overtime.
Ironically for the Aggies, the successful free throws by Evans were some of the only successful free throws on the night.
The team made 26 out of 47 shots from the line.
“We were awful from the line but we’ll come around,” Morrill said. “It’s just new guys being nervous.”
Brown said, “We’ve been working on our free throws a lot this preseason.”
In overtime, the Aggies were able to outscore EA Sports 10-5, including a wide-open three-point shot by Brown, for the 79-74 exhibition victory.
“Tony hit a lot of key shots in the closing of the game,” junior forward Desmond Penigar said.
“We shouldn’t have even went into overtime,” Brown said. “I think everybody on the team knows it. We didn’t play real well. We had a lot of up and down moments, times where we weren’t really playing smooth. But we hung in there and kept battling against these guys, a bunch of athletic guys, and came out with a win.”
Brown was right.
The team felt they didn’t play pretty, but they were able to turn things around when it came down to crunch time.
Facing a 12-point deficit with just under 10 minutes remaining, the Aggies went on a 20-7 scoring run, leading up to their first lead of the second half, 65-64.
Penigar, a transfer from Ventura Junior College, led USU with 10 points during the run.
Penigar finished the evening with eight of 15 shooting for 18 points.
“I just got focused in the second half,” Penigar said. “The first half I was a little bit nervous. It was my first Division I game. I’m usually playing in front of 1,000 to 2,000 people. It was a lot of people out there for me. I got that out of the way and in the second half I just got comfortable.”
More than 5,000 people were able to witness Penigar’s first game as an Aggie.
Penigar credited Brown for opening things up for him in the game.
“They were looking at Tony and he passed the ball down low so I could score,” he said.
Brown racked up six assists on the evening.
Junior guard Ronnie Ross, a transfer from John Wood Junior College, also contributed six assists and 10 points to the Aggies cause.
Despite the victory, Morrill feels the team still has a lot they need to work on.
“We did not screen very well, and we turned the ball over way too much. We ran to the wrong spots a lot, all of those kinds of things,” Morrill said.
Luckily for the Aggies, the team will have another exhibition game Saturday against Next Level at 2:35 p.m. in the Spectrum before their beginning regular season game on Nov. 17 at Montana State.
Former Aggie Shawn Daniels is expected to play on the Next Level team.
Utah State´s senior guard Tony Brown drives the ball past two EA Sports players. Brown led USU with 28 points and six assists on the evening. (Chris Clayton )