Hot shooting boosts Aggies over Air Force

Hitting three straight three-pointers is a good way to start a game. Finishing 13-of-23 from deep is a great way to win.

Led by Chris Smith’s six three pointers and a double-double from fellow junior guard Darius Perkins, the Aggies defeated Air Force at home in the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum 71-59 Saturday.

“They’re a pretty hard team,” Smith said, “we’ve been preparing for them all week so we knew what they were going to bring to us.”

Air Force set out to defend the paint early, focusing its defense on freshman forward David Collette and sophomore Jalen Moore. The Falcons held Moore and Collette to just four points in the first half, but allowed the Aggies to shoot 7-of-14 from beyond the arc — including a buzzer-beating three by Smith to put USU up by ten heading into the break.

“They were just doubling and tripling the post so that really opened it up for all the guards,” Smith said.

The Falcons battled back into the game with hot shooting of their own in the second half, cutting the Aggie lead to 41-40 before Smith drilled back-to-back threes to silence the Air Force run.

In addition to the Aggies’ 54.2 percent field goal shooting, ball movement proved key to USU’s third conference win. Perkins dished ten of USU’s season-high 22 assists along with 11 points, enough for his first career double-double.

“We needed to bounce back from the New Mexico game and get this one,” Perkins said, “that was our whole focus.”

The Aggies next face a tough four-game stretch, playing at Nevada and UNLV before taking on current conference frontrunner Wyoming at home. USU finishes its January schedule with its lone game versus SDSU in San Diego.