Aggies knock off Bulldogs for Stew’s 400th win
Darius Perkins scored 19 points in the second half to help the Aggies hold off the Bulldogs for an 85-79 Mountain-West win, Stew Morrill’s 400th win as an Aggie.
“We had to play well offensively to win because we were having a hard time getting a stop,” Morrill said. “It’s getting to late February, guys are worn down and you just have to keep fighting to win games. We did and our guys need to feel good about it.”
With under two minutes to play freshman forward David Collette picked up his fifth foul on a scrum play and Fresno hit two free throws to cut the lead down to six. The Aggies threw the ball away on the inbounds play and Fresno’s Marvelle Harris hit a 3-pointer to cut it to USU lead to three.
Perkins responded in clutch fashion and hit a 3-point shot of his own to boost the Aggie lead back up to six. Perkins, freshman center Elston Jones and junior guard JoJo McGlaston all hit free throws down the stretch to help close out the game. Utah State made over 77 percent of its free throws in the game.
The second half I just came out and played, I was having fun,” Perkins said. “JoJo was finding me a lot, that helped get me going. We don’t have any selfish players, we move the ball a lot.”
McGlaston had a career high six assists filled up the stat sheet with two rebounds, two blocks and seven points.
“I thought JoJo was really good off the bench,” Morrill said. “Probably his best night in a while.”
Although Utah State led for over 36 minutes in the game, it was a battle from the beginning. Fresno State played strong defense and forced three early turnovers before USU settled in with just over 13 minutes to play in the first half.
The Aggies took the lead on a Jalen Moore 3-pointer seven minutes into the game and held it for the rest of the game.
In the second half Utah State was unable to close out Fresno State early, each time a lead was built up Fresno clawed back and kept it close.
“I thought we fought at a hard level tonight,” said Rodney Terry, head coach for Fresno State. “We couldn’t get meaningful stops when we had to get those. We have to clean up our one-on-one defense because it let us down tonight.”
USU shot 64 percent in the second half and 54 percent from behind the 3-point arc to keep the lead over Fresno.
“They are a great team,” said Julion Pearre who had 19 points on an efficient 7-8 shooting, including 3-3 from behind the 3-point line. “They’re well coached. They are really scrappy. We had to firm up tonight and take care of the ball but they are a good team.”
Utah State moved to 9-5 in the MW, two games ahead of 7-7 Fresno State, with the conference tournament fast approaching. The Aggies have four more games before the tournament and a chance to earn a first round bye if they keep winning.
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Twitter: @kalen_taylor