Aggies search for gold against LBSU 49ers
In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy clicked the heels of her sparkled-red shoes and said, “There’s no place like home.”
Utah State University basketball Head Coach Stew Morrill knows this, as the Aggies have a 54-4 record in the Spectrum since Morrill became coach in the 1998-99 season.
Unfortunately for the Aggies, they will leave the friendly confines of the Spectrum to venture west to take on Long Beach State University and the University of California Irvine Thursday and Saturday, respectively.
“You look at college basketball there’s no question that there’s no place like home,” Morrill said. “You get your confidence back, play a little better and some of those things.”
Prior to the home games against the University of California Santa Barbara and Cal Poly, where the Aggies came away victorious 72-64 and 85-53 respectively, USU was on a three-game road trip.
“We have a tremendous challenge this week,” Morrill said. “We had a 28-6 team last year that won the first NCAA tournament game in 31 years and couldn’t beat these teams on the road.”
Even though Morrill knows it will be a difficult road trip, he said he just wants his team to have fun and not feel pressure to win the upcoming games.
Morrill said if someone thinks this year’s Aggie team is supposed to go on the road and win at Long Beach State and UC Irvine they are not very smart about basketball.
“We are approaching this very upbeat. We are excited about where we are at,” Morrill said. “If we want a chance to win in these two ball games, we have to play them better than we played them at home.”
The most-important aspect of the game the team needs to work on is defense, Morrill said.
In the first meeting of the season, the LBSU 49ers shot .458 from the field and the UCI Anteaters shot .509 from the field.
Although most think the prime focus of the upcoming road trip may be taking revenge on the Anteaters, Morrill said the team is focusing on both opponents.
“We’ve always done a little preparation for both teams during the week,” Morrill said. “We’ve got to really be careful so we don’t make our guys think that we’re not concentrating on Long Beach.”
Morrill is definitely concentrating on the 49ers, spending the last few days engulfed in film.
One of the biggest differences between Thursday’s meeting at Long Beach and when the 49ers came to Logan is the play of senior forward Travis Reed.
Reed, who was named Big West Player of the Week Monday, scored a career-high 31 points in the Feb. 1 win against the University of California Riverside. He also grabbed 11 rebounds for his seventh double-double of the season.
Reed scored 18 points off 6-of-8 shooting on Jan. 12 in the Spectrum.
“His performance has been amazing,” Morrill said. “He’s got such great hands and he’s got a rear-end as wide as a barn. He’s so hard to get around.”
Losing two of the last four road games, including a 32-point loss to the UCSB Gauchos, the 49ers suffered from an epidemic a lot of teams are faced with the second game on the road, Morrill said.
“A lot of teams get blasted the second night on the road,” he said.
To avoid a second-game road slump, the Aggies will look for continued success from guard Tony Brown, forward Desmond Penigar and center Jeremy Vague.
“Obviously Tony is having a spectacular senior year to this point, and I don’t see any reason that it will change much,” Morrill said. “He’s just passing the ball, and shooting the ball, and playing so solid and so smart. And we need him to do that; we need him to continue to do that.”
Morrill said he is encouraged by Penigar’s ability to bounce back from a poor first half against UCSB. He said it shows the junior’s maturity.
Continually looking for a third scorer, Vague looks to be a good candidate.
“If we can get him to find some happy medium, that would be positive,” Morrill said.
Guard Ronnie Ross and Toraino Johnson have also impressed Morrill.
Johnson is expected to get his fourth straight start after coming back from an injury when the Aggies take on Long Beach Thursday.