Aggies rout Wolf Pack, complete series sweep

Following his team’s 21-point home win over Nevada on Sunday, Utah State head coach Craig Smith said it felt like the team is “getting our footing back” as the postseason approaches.

The Aggies’ 87-66 victory was just their fifth game in February; two of those were a pair of losses to Boise State last week that crushed USU’s regular season Mountain West title hopes. Smith said it’s hard to build rhythm when playing only as often as football teams, but USU appears to have done just that with a sweep of Nevada in this week’s two-game series.

On Friday, the Wolf Pack made the Aggies sweat out a 75-72 win in the final minutes, but had no such luck in the rematch. Nevada made the first bucket of the game, but that 2-0 advantage would be its only lead of the night. Utah State surged ahead and built a double-digit lead thanks to its stifling defense.

Utah State held each of Nevada’s top-scorers in check for the entirety of the game. Grant Sherfield, who averaged 18.9 points per game entering the week, scored just six and didn’t make a field goal until midway into the second half. Desmond Cambridge had just13 after lighting up the Aggies for 26 points on Friday.

“We defended really, really well,” Smith said. “Our screen-and-roll defense I thought was excellent and that’s a big thing.”

Senior forward Alphonso Anderson said the team’s identity lies in its defense. Getting back to that this week meant getting back to winning. Smith said the team lived up to his mantra of “eliminating losing.”

“We made a lot of tough guy plays,” Smith said. “We made a lot of hustle plays. We got our hands on a lot of balls. We forced them into 19 turnovers.”

The defensive hustle and the turnovers it created fed into the offense. Freshman guard Max Shulga recorded a career-high four steals. Each of those led directly to a shot attempt and resulted in seven total points.

The 87 points on Sunday is the highest scoring output by the Aggies since Dec. 21, 2020. The often offensively challenged squad was able to inject energy into their game not only through its defense but also by sharing the ball extensively.

At times USU moved the ball with a playground-type flair. One play saw Rollie Worster chase down a loose ball but, rather than pick it up, he threw the ball between his legs like a football center snapping the ball to a quarterback. The recipient, Shulga, played the part of QB well by then dishing a pass to Marco Anthony who was fouled on his ensuing shot.

Thanks to the foul, that play didn’t wind up as one of Utah State’s 22 assists on the night, but many other flashy passes did. Neemias Queta, the benefactor of several of these passes, brought up multiple benefits to that type of ball-movement.

“The defense is not expecting it,” Queta said.  “And it brings a fun type of environment in the crowd. The crowd loves those types of passes and I feel like it gets us going at the same time because they’re big momentum plays.”