Aggies face biggest challenge yet in Saint Mary’s

During its 4-0 start, Utah State has already turned a few heads. The Aggies could earn even more attention with a win Monday evening over Saint Mary’s in the opening round of the MGM Main Event mini-tournament in Las Vegas.

The Aggies Gaels are part of the four team “Heavyweight” bracket along with No. 15 Mississippi State and Arizona State, who will face off after SMC and USU play. The winners of the two games on Monday will play each other after a consolation game between the two losing teams.

Utah State heads into the showdown following a 65-46 win over in-state opponent Utah Valley on Friday. The Aggies struggled to make shots in front of the home crowd — shooting a season-low 36.2 percent — but held the Wolverines under 50 points. Sam Merrill scored a team-high 14 points and is averaging a career-highs in points (20.8), assists (4.0), defensive rebounds (3.3) blocks (0.5), free throw percentage (90.0), 3-point percentage (47.4) and field goal percentage (57.1).

Saint Mary’s is currently  3-0 record having beaten McNeese State (87-65), Utah Valley (92-63) and New Mexico State (73-58). Utah State head coach Craig Smith had high praise for the Gaels.

“They have great tradition and they’re always a perennial NCAA tournament team, or bubble team at worst,” Smith said. “They’re the definition of a team that eliminates losing. They’re just so sound in every way, shape and form and they’re very well-coached.”

Leading SMC so far this season is guard Jordan Ford. The 6-foot-1 junior is averaging 28.7 points and 4.3 assists per game while making 54.9 percent of his shots. These averages are a far cry from Ford’s 2017-18 averages of 11.1 points and 1.6 assists despite the fact that he started 36 games for the Gaels last season.

“He’s definitely more aggressive,” Smith said of Ford. ” He makes so many plays, certainly for himself, but for others. He’s just in attack-mode all the time.”

Smith added that Ford is “really explosive, changes speeds very well, but at the same time, he can really get it going from the three, making two threes a game at 35 percent. That’s going to be a key is who are we going to guard him with and can we guard him?”

The game will tip off at 6:30 p.m. MST. It will be broadcast via radio on 1280 AM and 97.5 FM in the Salt Lake City area and on 92.3 KBLU-LP Logan in Cache Valley.