Both a blessing and a curse

The Utah State men’s basketball team’s blessing is their curse.

“The difficulty we have here is our home record,” Aggie Assistant Coach Don Verlin said. “The Internet has killed us that way. When you’re 125-12, getting people to come here is impossible. Absolutely nobody comes here first. For us to get a decent opponent, we have to go on the road to play.”

Having a balanced non-conference schedule with eight to 10 home games and four to six road games is the goal each year for Verlin and Head Coach Stew Morrill when they put together the Aggie schedule. This season, USU will play nine non-conference home games, five on the road and two on a neutral court before starting Western Athletic Conference play.

As Verlin said, the Aggies usually have to go on the road to start a home-and-home series – one where the teams trade home games in a two-year stretch.

“Our philosophy is, we’ll play anybody who wants to play a home-and-home,” he said. “If you can call around and find a home-and-home, we’ll take it. And we’ll start there first. We have never turned down a home-and-home, and we will never turn down a neutral-site game if it’s in the right place and doesn’t cost our athletic department too much money.”

This year’s schedule continues to follow this philosophy with Santa Clara, a West Coast Conference school, playing the second year of a home-and-home series, while USU heads out on the road for similar games with old Big West rivals University of California Irvine, Cal State Bakersfield and Cal Poly.

Although each year the coaches try to get similar things out of the schedule, each year’s is tailored to the Aggie players for that season.

“Next year, we lose maybe the best player in Utah State history, so is our schedule going to be as tough as it is this year? No it’s not, because we need to build some confidence with that team,” Verlin said.

On this year’s tougher schedule, at first glance a couple games should stick out, the first being a trip to the South Padre Island Invitational where Utah State will have the opportunity to play a Sweet 16 team from last year in Vanderbilt, as well as a consistent Missouri Valley team in the Bradley Braves and a Big Ten school, Iowa.

Verlin said South Padre is a big upgrade for Utah State, and they moved some games around to get into the tournament, which will be held Nov. 23 and 24.

The ESPN Bracketbuster is a big home game on the Aggies’ schedule, and it’s one USU coaches see as a good scheduling tool, Verlin said. USU can expect to host a pretty good mid-major school that they will have to play a home-and-home with.

The surprise on this year’s schedule, Verlin said, is a Nov. 20 game in the Spectrum against the Ohio Valley Conference’s Austin Peay Governors. He said the team returns everyone from last year’s National Invitational Tournament team that won 21 games.

But it may be the absence of one team on the Aggies’ schedule that sticks out more than the presence of any big-name schools.

Brigham Young University.

“Replacing BYU is brutal,” Verlin said. “And as big of a game as it is for Utah State, I think for the in-state rivalry and the series has going on 114 years, for that game not to be played this year is ridiculous.”

“We did everything, as our coaching staff, to enable that game to go on,” Verlin added. “If you got right down to the bottom line, all the stuff that was said and went on, the bottom line is they just don’t like coming to Logan, Utah. That’s it.

“I told the BYU guys, I feel sorry for two people – I feel sorry for our players and our fans and your fans – and all the other stuff that went on, it really doesn’t matter, because this game is all about the players and the fans.”

The series will continue next year at Energy Solutions Arena, with BYU playing in Logan the year after.

Other in-state rivals are on Utah State’s schedule this year, along with the addition of a few new ones too.

“Besides the little hiccup this year with BYU, Weber, Utah and BYU are always on the schedule,” Verlin said. “And now with Utah Valley and Southern Utah both on the schedule, it makes it kind of nice if we keep those rivalry, in-state games going. It obviously makes putting the schedule together a lot easier.”

The Aggies have to travel to Weber State and Utah but get to start the season off with SUU at home on Nov. 9 and host the Wolverines in the Gossner Foods Classic in late December.

Other teams on USU’s schedule, like Prairie View A&M, may have Aggie fans scratching their heads and wondering why Utah State isn’t playing bigger-name schools.

Verlin said some of this has to do Utah State’s resistance to playing two-for-one games – two home games for the big school and one road game – which the Aggies have never done under Morrill. The other part of the equation has to do with the way major-conference teams structure their non-conference schedules.

“What’s happened in college basketball is the major conferences, for instance, Syracuse and Pitt, this year, neither one of them even play a road game in their pre-league,” he said.

But what about Utah State’s strength of schedule when it comes tournament selection time?

“We’re not that conscious of (the NCAA Tournament selection process), to be honest with you,” Verlin said. “We want to play as good of opponents as we can, obviously to help our team. But the bottom line is, you’ve got to win games. The reason why people have talked about us and we’ve been close in the NCAA’s is because we’ve won 23, 24, 25 games.

“If you don’t win 20-plus – the number used to be 20, but now it’s a little more – if you don’t win 20-plus, you’re not getting in. So, you have to win those games, and that’s what’s hard. We’ve never felt like putting ourselves at a disadvantage going somewhere and playing a game that our fans couldn’t see, while we’re going to lose that game and it’s not going to help our RPI.”

For Verlin and the Aggies, non-conference is more a time of preparation than a time to puff up USU’s strength of schedule.

“The bottom line is, it comes down to the WAC,” he said. “If you win the regular conference in the WAC, you’re getting in, and if you win the tournament, you’re getting in.”

Utah State has been good about getting into the NCAA Tournament. They’ve done it two of the last three years – both resulting in first-round losses.

“Our focus is always to play good at the end of the year, get ready for the NCAA Tournament and get ready and go play,” Verlin said. “For us to win a couple games in the NCAA Tournament, we’ve just got to be better than we’ve been, and that’s the bottom line.”

– da.bake@aggiemail.usu.edu