Ags hold on for close win over Northeastern
The Aggies (4-1) were lucky to get a win in the Spectrum against the Northeastern University Huskies (2-2) Saturday night. Huskies’ senior guard Chaisson Allen scored a game-high 18 points and dished out seven assists in a game that his team should have one, but the Aggies had a few calls roll their way and held on for a 56-54 victory.
“We got lucky tonight,” Aggie junior forward Brady Jardine said. “We gave them every chance they needed to win. We did some things we shouldn’t have done. We didn’t do some things we needed to do. We have a long ways to go as a team. We feel lucky to get out of here tonight with a win at home. I think we did just enough to get out of here.”
Jardine hit two of his team-high 15 points with 1:05 left in the game to give the Aggies a lead they wouldn’t relinquish. Jardine finished the night with a double-double, as he grabbed 13 boards to go with is 15 points. Senior forward Tai Wesley added 14 points and junior guard Brockeith Pane chipped in 13 points. They were the only Aggies who had much going on either end of the court.
“Sometimes better lucky than good and we were very, very lucky to win tonight,” Aggie head coach Stew Morrill said. “That’s not a game that I felt we really deserved to win. I thought they out-played us. We just got fortunate. We had just a ton of open looks just and didn’t make them. We were primed and ripe and deserved to get beat. We really did. We’ve got a long way to go before we’re a really good basketball team.”
Neither team shot well from the floor, but the Aggies shot extremely poor from the field, especially from the 3-point line. The Ags shot 38 percent from the field and 16 percent on 3-of-18 from the 3-point line.
“We had a little bit of these shooting woes early last year,” Morrill said. “I’m not overly concerned about that; it’ll come around. We’ve just got to settle in a little bit. You’ve gotta believe you can make shots. A loss of confidence is hard to explain. You’ve gotta believe you can make shots. You’ve gotta know that you’re going to get opportunities. We had a lot of them tonight that we just didn’t make.”
Despite the dismal play from the Aggies, there were some positives from the game.
“This team has been causing 18 turnovers a game,” Morrill said. “We only turned it over five. There are a few positives. Brockeith (Pane) played a lot better. E.J. (Ferris) of the bench was real solid.”
Ferris finished with five points in five minutes of play.
The Aggies trailed a majority of the second half. It wasn’t until Wesley calmly sank two-free throws with just over three minutes remaining in regulation. A few calls at the end of the game that went the Aggies way gave them the advantage.
“It was the kind of game that I felt that we needed,” Wesley said. “We needed to prove ourselves and not have a blow-out, easy win at home. We needed to be tested. We’ll be tested like that on the road. It was a good game for us to pick some experience and learn how we can finish games down the stretch.”
The Aggies now prepare for a tough road trip this week, as they face the Denver Pioneers on Wednesday and the No. 16 Georgetown Hoyas on Saturday. They know that there is much room for improvement if they want a successful road trip.
“We’ve got to practice Monday,” Jardine said. “We have a lot to work on after tonight. We need to have good practices Monday and Tuesday to even have a chance to win at Denver and to win at Georgetown. We need to come together as a team and realize that we need to work harder. We need to work harder on the practice floor and do those little things that will help us win games when we get out here and start playing.”
Wesley said, “Whatever it was we need to fix it and we need to fix it in practice. That’s what we’re going to be looking to do on Monday.”
The game against Denver University is slated for Wednesday at 7:05 p.m in the Magness Arena.
-ty.d.hus@aggiemail.usu.edu