Hoopsters to take on Oral Roberts

The Utah State men’s basketball team starts its regular season Saturday when it travels to Tulsa, Okla., to face Oral Roberts and then to Murfreesboro, Tenn., to face Middle Tennessee State on Monday.

Oral Roberts finished last season with a 25-8 record and nearly qualified for the NCAA Tournament. Like the Aggies, the Golden Eagles are receiving two votes to be ranked in the Coaches Poll.

“Oral Roberts is a good team,” Aggie Durrall Peterson said. “We have to execute.”

Aggie Jaycee Carroll said he is ready to start playing for real.

“I’m excited to get the season going,” he said. “We’re going to play a good team in Oral Roberts. We’re not overlooking them at all. They’re a great team and a great matchup for us.”

Carroll said the biggest key to winning for the Aggies is how they go into the game.

“We don’t want that deer-in-the-headlights look,” he said. “We need to have confidence.”

Peterson said USU will not be intimidated by the opposing teams or crowds on the road trip.

“We go into every game with no fear,” he said. “We just take it one game at a time.”

USU won its first exhibition game against Occidental College 66-38, but lost its second to EA Sports 67-60.

The Aggies blame the loss on poor defense in the second half.

Peterson said the Aggies are learning from their mistakes.

“We’re working on finishing plays defensively,” Peterson said. “They made a lot of buzzer shots. We need more ball pressure.”

Carroll said the Aggies are using the EA Sports game as a learning experience.

“We need to get better from it,” he said. “We need to start playing the way we like to.”

Carroll went eight-for-23 from the field in the two pre-season games after shooting more than 52 percent last season. He said it’s nothing to worry about.

“Everyone has a day when they don’t do too well,” he said. “No one knew anything about me last season, but there was a lot of pre-season stuff about me this year.”

Like USU, Oral Roberts is returning four of its five starters from last season. Most notable of them is Caleb Green, who earned honorable mention All-America honors as a sophomore as he averaged 19.4 points and 9.3 rebounds per game.

MTSU returns only one starter from last year’s team that finished 19-12.

-bhhinton@cc.usu.edu