Aggies crushed by Cowboys
Following six-straight wins, Utah State lost by 23 points, 76-53, to Wyoming on Wednesday night.
“I didn’t see that coming,” said David Collette, a freshman forward who had 10 points, one block and one steal in the defeat. “We just kind of got relaxed with our winning. We played tired and lazy out there. That’s not usually who we are.”
In his third game back since missing four from mononucleosis, senior forward Larry Nance Jr. took over in Laramie, Wyoming on senior night. Nance had 21 points, 10 rebounds, three assists and two blocks.
“They’ve won 22 basketball games,” said Utah State head coach Stew Morrill, who is retiring at the end of the season. “They took it to us. We were not very good offensively at all. We were flat. We didn’t have any energy. Our defense wasn’t active enough. We looked like a tired, worn basketball team.”
Utah State trailed the entire game. The Aggies were able to cut the deficit to just four points with close to five minutes to play in the first half. After a Wyoming timeout, the Cowboys put their foot back on the gas and boosted themselves to a 10-point lead before the half.
In the second half it was all Wyoming. The Pokes had 36 second-half points on 61 percent shooting, compared to just 23 points for the Aggies on 43 percent shooting. USU shot a good percentage from the field — 45 percent — but was unable to keep pace with the 55 percent from Wyoming. Junior guard Josh Adams dished out eight assists for Wyoming and scored 17 points including three 3-pointers.
“They picked us apart, and we just watched them on defense,” Collette said. “The whole game we never got it together defensively and couldn’t put together two stops in a row. They came out with a lot of energy, and they took advantage of it.”
Junior Chris Smith led the Aggies with 18 points and sophomore Jalen Moore chipped in 11. Utah State lost the battle on the boards 30-21 to a defensively-dominant Wyoming team. Wyoming also won the assist to turnover ratio with 26 assists to six turnovers. Utah State had 11 turnovers and only 10 assists.
“We got our butt kicked, and there’s really nothing else to say,” Morrill said. “It was great on their part, really bad on our part. They dominated the game. We sucked, and that’s it.”
— kalen.s.taylor@gmail.com
Twitter: @kalen_taylor