Aggies narrowly avoid upset in Fresno
In the words of Utah State head coach Craig Smith, the Aggies were “able to find a way to win when not a lot went right.”
USU went into the halftime break with just 17 points their name and were down 10 points to Fresno State. They were 6 of 24 from the field and their leading scorer on the season, Neemias Queta, had tallied only two points. Smith may have undersold the half by calling it a “terrible start.”
“We were just not very tough at the rim and just out of rythym,” Smith said.
Junior forward Justin Bean went a little further by calling it the team’s “worst offensive half of the year.”
“It wasn’t pretty and a lot of it was we were in our heads too much,” Bean said. “Coming into the game we were a little bit shaken up on offense. We were just too tentative. Give them credit, I thought they defended really well and made it uncomfortable for all of us.”
It was, in fact, the worst offensive half of basketball by the Aggies all year in terms of points scored. In no other game had the team scored less than 20 points in either half. The next-worst mark was a 22-point first half back on Jan. 16 when facing San Diego State. The Aggies found themselves in an eerily similar situation on that day; a poor first half, a 10-point defecit, and also an eventual win thanks to a strong second half.
Numerous times throughout the season, Smith has talked about getting the ball to Queta more to initiate offense. True to that philosophy, adjustments at halftime revolved around getting the star big man the ball.
“We kind of changed our strategy going into the second half to get him some better looks on offense,” Bean said. “Just clearing the paint for him, letting him do his thing and finding better spacing and I though he really took advantage of that.”
The adjustments were executed well as Queta went 4 of 8 from the field in the second half. He finished the game tied with Bean for most points on the team at 13. He also had 11 rebounds, second to Bean’s 12.
Utah State didn’t take its time to get back into the game. Right out of the halftime locker room, the Aggies went on an 8-0 run to make it a one-possession game. What did take a while was the task of actually taking the lead. That didn’t happen until the 9:54 mark of the second half when Steven Ashworth sank a 3-pointer to give USU a 40-39 advantage.
Ashworth’s three wasn’t the end of Utah State’s comeback as it marked one of seven lead changes in the final 10 minutes of the game. The final lead change came from Mr. Dependable himself, Alphonso Anderson.
Following a steal by Ashworth with 2:33 left in the game and the Bulldogs up 48-47, USU entered into an offensive possession that featured three missed shot attempts with an accompanying three offensive rebounds to keep the ball in the Aggies’ hands. After the third missed shot, Smith called a timeout to reset the offense.
The initial play Smith called broke down. Queta had to throw a frantic pass from the baseline to Marco Anthony who drove but kicked out to Anderson. The 6-foot-7 senior, who at that point was 0 for 3 from deep, drilled a triple from the left wing. One possession later, Anthony assisted on another big bucket, another 3-pointer, this time by freshman Rollie Worster.
“There was a lot of GATA in that game tonight,” Bean said. “A lot of guys did a lot of good things in crunch time when it really mattered.”
Fresno State would trim the lead down to 53-51 with half a minute to go, but Utah State made the necessary free throws to ice the game and didn’t allow another point the rest of they way regardless.
The victory makes Utah State the two seed in the upcoming Mountain West Conference Tournament. In the two previous seasons under Smith, when the Aggies won the tournament both times, they were also the two seed. USU will play their first game of the tournament on Thursday with their opponet being the winner of UNLV vs Air Force.