Aggies look to avenge loss at Fresno State
Utah State has one home loss this season. It came on Jan. 9 to Fresno State after leading for 39 minutes and 35 seconds, after leading by as much as 12 points, and after shooting 51 percent from the field. Tonight, 26 days later, the Aggies will get the chance to avenge that loss.
Falling at home to the Bulldogs may likely be the most embarrassing loss of the season for the Aggies because at no point until Braxton Huggins drained his eighth 3-pointer to give Fresno State its only and decisive lead with five seconds left did anyone actually thing USU would lose.
“Give those guys credit for it,” USU head coach Craig Smith said. “It was a game we, for the most part, controlled for the whole game last time and Braxton Huggins rose up and drilled a really difficult 22-footer to win the game.”
Huggins powered the strong second half that led the Bulldog comeback. Of his 33 overall points, 25 came in the latter 20 minutes on 9 of 12 shooting and 6 of 8 from 3-point range. Fresno State as a team made 10 of 16 shots beyond the 3-point line.
All of that offensive prowess late wouldn’t have meant anything had the Aggies taken care of business on their own offensive end. Utah State scored more points in the second half (39 vs 38 in the first), but made 41.7 percent of its shots (60 percent in the first) and an abysmal 11.1 percent from three (1 of 9).
Even if you throw out the recent history between these two teams, this game has enormous ramifications for the Mountain West standings. While sixth-ranked Nevada has made the regular season title a one-team race, the fight for second could be decided in Fresno. An Aggie win puts them a full game ahead and helps them keep control of its destiny. A Fresno State win gives the Bulldogs the season sweep, a tiebreaker and a one-game lead in the standings.
Not much has changed between the two teams. The one major change is that Utah State moved on from Crew Ainge as the starting point guard in favor of former walk-on Abel Porter. With Porter manning the point position, the Aggies are 4-0 including a win at New Mexico where Porter made a game-winning three at the end of the game.
Sam Merrill, the Aggies’ leading scorer, is averaging 23.7 points per game in his last three games. He’s also putting up 5.3 assists, 3.0 rebounds and 1.7 steals in that same span. In the six conference games prior to this recent stretch, Merrill averaged just 16.7 points on career-worst shooting percentages in league play.
The game will tip off at 8:30 p.m. Mountain Time in Fresno, CA. The game will be streamed on the Utah State Athletic’s website and can also be listened to on 1280 and 97.5 The Zone in the Salt Lake area or 92.3 KBLU-LP Logan in Cache Valley.