Aggies rally but fall short against Nevada
The Utah State men’s basketball team had chances to win, but was unable to capitalize in an 89-85 loss to Nevada on Saturday night in Logan.
The loss dropped the Aggies to 11-9 and 3-6 in conference play.
“You have the ball on your home court, under four minutes to go, a chance to take the lead and we didn’t make any plays,” said head coach Tim Duryea. “You’ve got to make some plays when the game is on the line if you want to win and we didn’t make any tonight.”
With USU trailing by two and less than 50 seconds left on the game clock, sophomore forward Elston Jones grabbed an offensive rebound and immediately went back up, but his tip-in attempt rimmed out and the Aggies never had another shot to take the lead.
“That’s how fine the line is in this league between most of the teams between winning and losing,” Duryea said.
Trailing by as much as 18 early in the second half, USU seemed well on its way to another uninspiring conference loss. The Aggies rallied though, responding with a 17-6 run over a three and a half minute stretch to close within seven.
The run was capped by a 3-pointer by senior guard Chris Smith and an uncontested dunk by junior wing Jalen Moore that forced Nevada to call a timeout.
“It’s frustrating because that is the way we can play,” Duryea said. “Sometimes we get in these stretches where the ball stops moving or we just make careless plays… When we play the right way, we play like we did in the second half.”
The Aggies continued to whittle away at the lead over the next 12 minutes, eventually tying the game at 78 on a jump shot by junior guard Shane Rector with just under three minutes left.
“I thought we did a great job,” Duryea said. “The ball was moving, we were driving the ball, making plays for our teammates. When you do that the scoreboard takes care of itself.”
Nevada guard Tyron Criswell shot 1 of 2 from the free throw line on the next possession, but the Wolfpack grabbed the offensive rebound on the missed free throw. Nevada missed the ensuing 3-point shot, but again collected the offensive rebound. Utah State finally ended the possession when Jones gathered the rebound after a missed layup, but the Wolfpack were able to run nearly a minute and a half off the clock in the possession.
“It just comes down to we’ve got to want it more,” said senior guard Darius Perkins. “It’s all the small things that are killing us right now. Simple block outs, it’s not like it’s something big. It’s just things that take effort that is killing us right now.”
Smith missed the go-ahead 3-point shot just seconds later, but another 1 of 2 showing at the line by Nevada kept the Aggies within two.
Jones missed the tip-in on the next possession and Nevada shot 9-of-10 from the charity stripe down the stretch to close out the Aggies.
“Every game besides New Mexico we’ve been in,” Smith said. “We have to find a way. We don’t know how yet, but come together as a team and find a way to win games.”
Utah State led for the early part of the game, eventually opening up a 22-16 lead with 10:32 left in the first half. Nevada – who came into the game as the second-worst deep-shooting team in the Mountain West – hit three triples over the next two minutes to turn the deficit into a five-point lead.
“That’s when we took a punch,” Perkins said. “At that time we didn’t respond. Guys that we thought couldn’t shoot hit some shots so that was the time we needed to respond but we didn’t. That’s when we dug ourselves a hole.”
The Wolfpack continued to blitz the Aggies, eventually pushing the run to 37-13 after two fastbreak baskets to start the second half.
“We need to be more tough on ourselves,” Smith said. “We need to hold ourselves more accountable. We get hit in the mouth, we can’t be scared and just let them do what they want. We have to fight back and do whatever we have to do to get the lead back.”
Nevada ended the game 10 of 22 from deep, including 8 of 16 in the first half. The team had averaged just over five 3-point makes per game on 31 percent shooting prior to Saturday’s explosion.
Smith led the Aggies with 19 points on 7 of 13 from the field, including 4 of 6 from deep. He added eight rebounds, four assists, a block and a steal in 33 minutes.
Moore scored 17 points on 6 of 10 shooting and added six rebounds and three assists. Rector contributed 16 points and three assists while shooting 7 of 10 from the floor.
The next game for the Aggies will be Tuesday when they travel to Boise to take on the Broncos.
– thomas.sorenson@aggiemail.usu.edu
Twitter: @tomcat340