Hot shooting, screaming kids lead USU to blowout win over San Jose State

It was elementary day today at the spectrum as the Aggies hosted the San Jose State Spartans. With 3,000 screaming kids in attendance cheering them on, the Aggies were full of energy and determination to get an 82-49 win over San Jose State on their homecourt. USU Head coach Jerry Finkbeiner thought the crowd played a large role in the Aggies’ success.

“Today, even though it was kind of a blowout, I think the local crowd had a lot to do with it,” Finkbeiner said. “It made the game fun and helped us create some momentum.”

However, the game didn’t start out quite so lively for either team. Utah State missed its first eight shots before converting on a Deja Mason putback that got the Aggies their first two points, but found them down 4-2 with four minutes gone. The Aggies rebounded, literally, by grabbing 14 rebounds in the first quarter. Utah State also started to convert on open looks and finished the quarter by going 7 of 12 from the field. The Aggies found themselves down 18-17 at the end of the first quarter, but that was the last time San Jose State would have a lead.

Shannon Dufficy plays for USU during their game against SJSU, with an audience of Cache Valley elementary students in the background.

After a slow start and not much involvement from Utah State’s leading scorer, junior forward Shannon Dufficy, she helped spark the Aggies offensive to score 29 points in the second quarter. A lot of what led to more looks for the Aggies was great hustle, especially under the basket. Utah State gathered 14 offensive rebounds in the half, while out-rebounding San Jose State 31-17 overall. The increased energy on the offensive side of the court led to some great effort on the defensive side as well, which forced San Jose into a lot of bad looks. San Jose was limited to just 13 shots in the quarter, only converting on four of them.

Here’s what coach Finkbeiner had to say about the team’s turnaround.

“It’s a little bit of a concern, but the positive is it didn’t keep us down for more than six or seven minutes,” Finkbeiner said. “We kept fighting and some of our girls that I’d consider our scorers have been pretty inconsistent, but they stepped up and scored.”

Three-point shooting was a key to Utah State turning around the game.

“That really created a lot of holes down low and also, it really created a lot of energy,” said Dufficy. This gave the team a lot more confidence driving in and getting off shots as the game went on, Dufficy also noted.

As the game progressed, Utah State was able to limit San Jose State’s shooting really well, holding the Spartans to 29 percent for the game and 25 percent in the second half. The game plan for the Aggies heading into this contest was to limit San Jose’s three-point shooting and force them to take chances in the paint.

“I think we made the right decisions in our game plan the first 35 minutes to take away the three and make them drive,” Finkbeiner said. “I’ll say too, we’ve done a really good job at scouting report over the past couple games, the last three games in particular.”

Shannon Dufficy, USU guard and forward, drives to the hoop during the Aggies’ January 16 game against SJSU.

All throughout the second half Utah State continued to pull ahead. This allowed the Aggies to bring in some players off the bench, to much success. For the day, Utah State had 31 bench points, led by guards Emmie Harris and Steph Gorman. These two combined to score 17 of Utah State’s 31 bench points in 39 minutes of action. Although the bench played their part, two starters really shined for the Aggies: junior forwards Hailey Bassett and Shannon Dufficy. Bassett nearly had her first double-double of the season with 14 points and nine rebounds, while Dufficy had her sixth straight double-double with a career-high 24 points along with 10 rebounds.

Here’s what Dufficy had to say about her team’s performance.

“Clearly today we played really well, we haven’t had a game like this in conference that we’ve been able to blow it out, so credit to us,” Dufficy said. “I think this is a good starting point for the rest of the conference season.”

Utah State continues conference play with a road game this coming Saturday against 7-8 Colorado State.