Balanced scoring leads USU basketball to victory
The Utah State men’s basketball team may have been without the services of starting point guard Mark Brown, but it didn’t show Friday against Hawaii-Hilo in the final exhibition game of the season.
The Aggies had balanced scoring on their way to a 94-70 victory over the Vulcans in the Spectrum.
“I thought we played with a lot more enthusiasm than we did against Global,” said USU Head Coach Stew Morrill. “I thought we were more aggressive defensively. We were kind of timid last week and weren’t anticipating. [Against Hawaii-Hilo] we were getting up and getting after them.”
The team was especially on fire toward the end of the first half.
The Aggies did not allow the Vulcans to score for the final eight minutes of the first half, recording 21 points of their own on their way to a 47-25 halftime lead.
“We knew they would go inside so our philosophy this game was to give them the outside shots and pack it in,” said Hawaii-Hilo Head Coach Jeff Law. “Then they hit a couple of three pointers and it seemed like we couldn’t guard them inside or out. We battled early in the first half. I just made a few substitutions that I wouldn’t make in a season game and the Aggies went on a big run.”
No one in particular stood out for Utah State during the scoring spree, and at the end of the first half the Aggies did not have a player in double digits as the scoring was extremely balanced.
The play continued much the same in the second half, and USU finished with four players in double digits – Spencer Nelson (19), Mike Ahmad (17), Cardell Butler (14) and Ian McVey (12).
Ahmad in particular had a huge night, using his size to his advantage. The 6-foot-9, 240-pound senior said he anticipates this season to be the same way.
“It’s going to be that way in a lot of games I play in,” he said. “I’m a big guy, and they get me in the weight room all the time to keep me strong.”
USU’s other big men, McVey and forward Nate Harris, stepped up for the Aggies off the bench. McVey went 6-for-10 from the field and Harris chipped in seven points and seven rebounds.
Butler went 2-for-5 from behind the arc and Chris Huber finished with eight points and eight assists in place of Brown.
It was the second consecutive game Brown has missed because of a pulled hamstring.
“He hasn’t practiced in 10 days, and we’ll give him a couple more days off and see what happens,” Morrill said. “We’d like to have him back, but Huber did a much better job [than last week]. I was really encouraged by his play. He was much improved.”
Huber said, “I’m just starting to feel comfortable in Coach Morrill’s system and now I’m starting to not think and just play and have fun. That is what Coach Morrill has been stressing to me. It has just helped being out on the floor a lot more and being comfortable with everything.”
Huber got in the scoring action early as Utah State hit two treys and Nelson completed a three-point play from the free-throw line.
Ryan Abrahams went 8-for-19 from the field and scored 20 points to lead Hawaii-Hilo. He was also the team’s leader with 23 points in its first exhibition game of the year against Sungkyunkwan University. The Vulcans came out on top 81-54.
Even though Utah State defeated UHH last year in a regular season game on the road, the 71-60 score was much closer.
Law said he thought the change this year was that the Aggies have simply gotten bigger.
“They relied more on their inside game this year,” he said. “This year they got a little beefier and bigger and they utilized their inside guys very well. They executed very well tonight and I was impressed by how tough they were.”
-juag@cc.usu.edu