Fazekas walks over Aggies to hand Nevada the win
Whatever force that enabled the Aggies to beat Nevada at home last season certainly wasn’t with them this time.
USU traveled to Reno to take on the Nevada Wolfpack for the first time since the two teams played last year in the Western Athletic Conference championship game. Nevada won the game last year in overtime. Things didn’t go so well this time around for USU as Nevada won easily 79-62.
Nevada came into the game ranked 15th nationally and returned four starters from last year’s squad which beat the Aggies two out of the three times the teams met.
“They’re a lot better than they were last year,” senior forward Chris Sessions said in a post-game radio interview.
That showed during the first half as Nevada’s size and shooting was the difference as the Wolfpack took a 43-30 lead into halftime. The Aggies had no answer for Nevada big man Nick Fazekas who scored 14 points in the first half and ended the game with 24 points and 18 rebounds.
“There’s really not a lot that you can do with him, especially when you’re undersized,” Head Coach Stew Morrill said in a post-game interview. “You try and double him, and he shoots away from the double team quickly.”
Coming into the second half and trailing by 13 points, USU junior guard Jaycee Carroll started to take the game into his own hands during a stretch where he scored 11 straight points for the Aggies, and the team got to within seven points on a few occasions. For the game, Carroll would finish with a team-high 15 points while senior forward Chaz Spicer would contribute 12.
If it weren’t for a few poor shots and some errors, the Aggies could have gotten the score closer.
“We took a couple of bad shots. That’s not what we needed at that time,” Sessions said.
“We made some game prep errors,” Morrill said. “We took a couple of bad shots and before you know it, the game was over. You can’t make those errors when you’re trying to come back against a ranked team.”
Ahead by eight points with 8:21 left in the game, Nevada went on a commanding 13-3 run to put the game away.
“We had a tough time scoring,” Morrill said. “Their defense is good. Their size is a problem. They’re gonna be tough to beat.”
Aside from Fazekas’ 24 points, Nevada received key contributions from starters Marcelus Kemp and Ramon Sessions. Kemp ended the game with 15 points while Sessions scored 13. Nevada point guard Kyle Shiloh ran the offense effectively as he dished out six assists and scored 10 points of his own.
“They got a ton of weapons; that’s why they’re ranked in the top 20,” Morrill said. “They’re better than us. You talk about all of this stuff, but the bottom line is they’re bigger [and] they’re better.”
One positive aspect for USU was that they had one of their better games handling the ball. The team only committed six turnovers for the game as compared to 10 turnovers by Nevada.
“We’ve done a better job taking care of the ball,” Morrill said.
Things don’t get any easier for the Aggies as they travel to Hawaii to play the Warriors Monday night in a game that starts at 10:05 p.m.
-samabry@cc.usu.edu