Double the meeting, double the beating
Playing Weber State University for the second straight game this season, the Aggies beat the rival Wildcats 77-68 Saturday in their home season opener.
“I thought Weber State did a great job,” Head Coach Stew Morrill said. “They came in and didn’t run their normal stuff. I really thought they played better than us. I thought we were fortunate to win, I really did.”
The rivalry match was riddled with errors as the two teams committed a combined 36 turnovers and 51 fouls. The game was largely determined by free throw shooting which secured the game for the Aggies as they shot 86.5 percent from the line. Morrill called the match a “free throw barrage.”
“Yeah, that’s probably the thing that gave us a win,” Morrill said about the team’s free throw shooting. “This is not an executing team right now. In five games we’ve probably executed one game. That’s been our strength as a program is to execute. We’re not doing that yet. This group has got to decide if they’re going to do that.”
The Aggies downed the Wildcats 68-55 a week ago in Fairbanks, Alaska during the Top of the World Classic, which USU went on to win. In that match the Aggies jumped to an early 15-3 lead in the opening minutes of the game before Weber State countered in the second half to make a tighter game.
“Anytime you play a team back to back it will be difficult,” senior forward Durrall Peterson said. “You want to prepare for them but you don’t want to prepare too much because you know they’ve changed other things. Especially on an instate rivalry you want to play on the rivalry standpoint. You can never worry; you just go out and play.”
The second match on Saturday produced much different results as the two teams stayed evenly matched in the first half. The Aggies jumped to a modest lead but the Wildcats’ consistent shooting and tight defense prevented USU from increasing the lead margin.
Shooting 54 percent from the field and 50 percent from beyond the arc, the Wildcats took the lead with under seven minutes to play in the half. The Aggies struggled with landing shots in the first half, shooting a weak 34.6 percent from the field and 25 percent from the three-point line. The Aggies remained behind the remainder of the half and went into halftime down 37-35.
“Anytime a team is shooting 50 percent, you have to play better,” Peterson said. “A lot of the time you get to watch, and we see that teams are hitting baskets on us 50 percent of the time; we’re not playing defense.”
The second half produced nearly reverse results of the first half as the Aggies shot 52 percent from the field and 50 percent from beyond the arc while the Wildcats had a 34.8 field goal percentage.
On the first play in the second half, Wildcat forward Arturas Valeika took a foul on the way up and made the bucket and the ensuing free throw to increase the WSU lead to 40-35.
The Aggies responded with big plays by Peterson and junior guard Jaycee Carroll. Peterson nailed two free throws after being fouled and hit his own and-one chance after being fouled on a shot to tie the game 40 all. Carroll increased the momentum as he stole the ball and took it down court for a lay-up and hit a lean-in leaper a few seconds later to take a 44-40 lead.
Senior forward Chris Session continued the run by hitting two free throws and drilling a fade away jumper. The Aggies went on a 21-5 run to lead the Wildcats 56-42, the biggest lead of the game.
“We had about a 10 minute stretch in the second half where we really got after it,” Morrill said. “That helped us. I thought their preparation and game plan was good. Had we not been at home I don’t think we would have won. We’ve got a long way to go before we’re a competitive WAC team, a long way to go.
“We’ll take the win and move forward. We turned it over too much, we didn’t execute and we couldn’t guard them in the first half. Other than that I was real happy.”
Weber State came alive after the run and ran up 12 points to come within six points with only a few minutes remaining in the game. A balanced effort by the Aggies and a key three-point shot by Carroll gave the Aggies the 77-68 victory.
“We’ve improved tremendously and we’re going to keep improving,” Peterson said of the team’s performance since the beginning of the season. “One thing that we’ve improved on is withstanding punches. In the game of basketball it’s all about runs and sometimes you’ve just got to withstand those runs and we seem to be doing that lately. Against Northwestern we didn’t withstand their punches. That’s one thing that comes from heart. Right now we’re building heart and character and we’re getting better.”
Morrill had a different view of how the team performed.
“We might have some guys nervous at their first home game. I hope that’s what it was because the decision making was very poor,” Morrill said. “The thing you’ve heard me complaining about is practice habits and it transpired into the game tonight. You can make all the excuses in the world, but excuses don’t get you far, excuses don’t get you better.”
The Aggies will next take to the road to challenge South Dakota State Wednesday, Nov. 29.
-sethhawkins@cc.usu.edu