Aggies prep for Wolf Pack on the road
Road games haven’t been too kind to the USU men’s basketball team. The Aggies have a 10-2 record at home, while they have struggle to an 2-8 road record with just one win in Western Athletic Conference play.
After picking up a pair of home wins against Hawaii (77-72) and San Jose State (82-65), the Aggies head out on the road to face Nevada and Fresno State.
“I think we have too many road games, out on the road again,” USU head coach Stew Morrill said. “It’s obviously a big challenge both nights, but certainly the first one. You realize that Nevada is on a roll and have won 15 straight. We lost to them at home, and it’s certainly a big challenge.”
USU will face Nevada (18-3, 7-0 WAC), who is on a 15-game winning streak and has yet to drop a game against a WAC opponent. Tip off is set for 8 p.m.
USU (12-10, 4-3 WAC) nearly defeated the Wolf Pack at home this season, but sophomore guard Deonte Burton hit a clutch 3-pointer and a free throw to give Nevada a 78-71 win. USU won nearly every stat category with the exception of rebounds.
“If we are going to compete with them at all, we’ve got to do a much better job than we did here in Logan, in several areas,” Morrill said. First one, obviously rebounding is always and issue for us. That was probably the main stat of that game.”
Nevada outrebounded USU 34-24 and grabbed 13 offensive rebounds. Senior forward Dario Hunt grabbed 12 rebounds — seven of those offensive boards — which led to 10 second chance points and 14 more field goal attempts than USU.
Junior forward Kyisean Reed scored one point and dished out one assist in 11 minutes of playing time due to foul trouble.
“They went right at him and he didn’t physical up, he didn’t man up, whatever you want to call it,” Morrill said. “He’s got to get more physical or they’ll dominate him again and that has been the thing we have been pushing all year with Kyisean. When he can play in space like he did against San Jose State, boy he is hard to stop, but when people get really physical with him it has been a problem. He’s got to respond to that, it’s time.”
Burton finished with 25 points during USU’s loss and the Wolf Pack shot 48 percent from the field.
“As I have watched that game multiple times we were really bad defensively in our game prep,” Morrill said. “We prepared a lot of things and then got in the game and didn’t handle them after prepping them. We’ve got to do a better job in that area if we’re going to have a chance to compete.”
Olex Czyz, Malik Story and Dario Hunt all finished in double figures, but it was Burton who gave USU the most problems.
“I have to do a better job of guarding Burton,” Pane said. “Their four main guys have been playing pretty good too.
“We’ve just got to go down there and play as hard as we can. They are undefeated in the WAC. This will be a good test for us. We need to get a true road win. This will be a good road win for us.”
– ty.d.hus@aggiemail.usu.edu