Aggies prepare for Loyola Marymount
The USU men’s basketball team will continue its postseason run as it host the Loyola Marymount Lions in the quarterfinal matchup at the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum.
The matchup features two teams that finished fourth in their respective conferences and dropped their first conference tournament game, and will tipoff Wednesday at 7 p.m.
USU reached the quarterfinals by defeating Western Athletic Conference foe Idaho 76-56, while LMU defeated Weber State in overtime 84-78.
The Lions may pose USU its toughest home challenge of the this season. Four players, led by sophomore guard Anthony Ireland, are averaging double figure scoring, and one of those players, junior guard Jared DuBois, comes off the bench.
“They are very good on the break,” USU head coach Stew Morrill said. “Anthony Ireland is just extremely quick, their point guard, he kind of orchestrates the whole show for them. They run a ton of ball screens and he is exceptional off of them, making plays for himself and for everybody else off on-ball screens. Obviously watching them on film, they’re impressive.”
Ireland scored 20 points and dished out 10 assists in the victory over the Weber State.
“We can’t just rely on one guy guarding him,” Morrill said of the sophomore. “Especially coming off on-ball screens, you’ve got to decide how you’re going to play them and figure out what’s the best way to play them to try and slow him down a little bit.”
LMU defeated Brigham Young (82-68) and St. Mary’s (75-60) on the road this season, while playing Gonzaga very close in both conference games played.
“Obviously we’ve got a good challenge tomorrow with Loyola Marymount,” USU head coach Stew Morrill said. “All you have to do is look at some of the things they have accomplished this year. They’re a quality team that has a lot of good wins and present a lot of issues. Their talent level is very good, they make a lot individual plays that are hard to guard.”
The Aggies have become accustomed to so-called “junk defenses” throughout the season as teams have tried to focus on stopping the backcourt duo of sophomore guard Preston Medlin and Brockeith Pane, but USU is unlikely to deal with that kind of defense against LMU.
“They’re just a really good and solid man-to-man defensive team,” Morrill said. “To our knowledge they’re not a team that plays zone, very rarely if at all. They will occasionally pick you up full-court but they are not a pressing team necessarily. They just do one thing and do it quite well. They’re good defensively, just man-to-man, solid fundamental man-to-man defense.”
Medlin is averaging 16.5 points per outing heading into the game and Pane is averaging 12.3 points per game.
“Right now our guys now need to be confident and feel good about themselves,” Morrill said. “They’ve won five of their last six games, we swept a road trip that really gave us a chance to play postseason and moved us up into the upper half of the league. We have won a couple of games in this tournament, so our guys should be upbeat and confident and positive about what they can get done out there and hopefully they are.”
– ty.d.hus@aggiemail.usu.edu