COLUMN: A different point of view
As a sports fan, I don’t think it would be possible to ask for a better three-day stretch of basketball games than what we got. There are certain times that I really enjoy saying, “I told you so,” and this is certainly one of those times. I don’t care if you’re even just a lukewarm sports fan – no cruise, no week on the beach, no trip to Mexico or whatever people do during Spring Break could have possibly provided more thrills and excitement than the three days in Reno for Aggie basketball. Just in case you missed it, here’s a recap from the perspective of the first few rows of the loudest and rowdiest traveling fan base in the nation.
I don’t think I was alone in my displeasure that Fresno State beat Hawaii in the play-in game to face top seeded USU in the Western Athletic Conference Tournament. Fresno had given the Aggies as much of a fit as any WAC team this season while Hawaii got thoroughly smacked around by USU in both meetings this year.
Less than three minutes into the first round game of top seed versus bottom seed, it all seemed like a non-issue. Utah State, along with probably 300 or so rabid students of the “Spectrum on Wheels,” had already shown that we were all there in Reno to put an emphatic stamp on this entire basketball season by finishing off a stellar regular season with a WAC Tournament Championship.
The entire mass of cameras and press at the tournament turned their lenses, eyes and full-attention to the mob-scene of celebration in the Utah State student section when Fresno State called their first timeout less than two and a half minutes into the game with the Aggies leading 11-2. The Aggies continued to roll over Fresno while the student section continued the domination of their temporary home away from home in Nevada’s Lawlor Events Center.
The next day held a little more drama to it than the previous one. In the match-up of the WAC’s two Aggie squads, Utah State got off to an early 10-point lead against New Mexico State before a 3-point barrage from NMSU, led by Jonathan Gibson, left Utah State with a 13-point deficit at halftime.
Enter Tyler Newbold.
Newbold was assigned to smother Gibson defensively in the second half and held him to just two points of his 16 in the game in the second half. In case you didn’t hear, Newbold also hit the game-winning basket with USU trailing by a point with just more than three seconds to play. That semifinal victory was without a doubt the most thrilling victory of the season for USU and Aggie fans responded as such. Once again the “Spectrum on Wheels” was approaching dangerously loud levels, and I’m not sure we weren’t far away from spontaneous combustion for how much buzz was flying around there.
The next day was loaded with anticipation, nerves, medication and lots of waiting.
The event center conveniently had USU students and Nevada students waiting in the same line by the same doors for the championship game. To everybody’s credit, we all got along great despite the obvious differences between us. Some of us were Aggie fans and some were Wolf Pack fans. Some of us were pounding cough drops and sore-throat medicine to get our voices as ready as possible and some were pounding beers. Some of us drove nearly 600 miles to be there and some were outnumbered by visiting students in their own building. By night’s end some of us were in a mob of fans at center-court and some were sulking on their way home. I think you can tell who was who in all of those scenarios.
I used to think I was keeping myself grounded in claiming that Utah State basketball fans were some of the best fans in the nation rather than just giving the distinction of “The Best” – I’m all out of doubts now. There’s just nothing like what happened last weekend in Reno.
The loudest, rowdiest and most dedicated fan base in the nation was as deserving of a championship as anybody possibly could have been outside of the Aggie players themselves. A championship is exactly what everybody got.