Kemp’s 35 too much for Aggies
Jaycee Carroll did all he could to try and carry the Utah State men’s basketball team against the University of Nevada-Reno Monday night.
Unfortunately for Carroll and the rest of the Aggies, Nevada’s Marcelus Kemp did just a little more to help the home team win, 85-80, and tighten the race in the Western Athletic Conference standings.
After a slow first half in which Carroll scored just five points, the senior guard came out in the second half on fire and scored 24 points.
He finished the game on 10-of-18 shooting, including 4-of-7 on 3-pointers.
Kemp came out firing with 13 points in the first half and kept it going in the second half to add another 22 for a career-high 35 points.
“It was the Jaycee Carroll-Marcelus Kemp show tonight,” Aggie redshirt freshman Tai Wesley said in a postgame radio interview.
For most of the first half, the game was tightly played with the Aggies taking the lead on two occasions-the last being off a Kris Clark second-chance shot to give the Aggies a 28-27 lead.
With four minutes remaining in the first half, it ended up being the last time the Aggies would be ahead in the game.
Over the remainder of the half, Utah State turned the ball over three times to help Nevada go on a 11-2 run to close the half with a 38-30 lead.
“We made some errors, committed turnovers for layups, and all of the sudden a close game turned into a double-digit situation,” Morrill said.
Coming out for the second half, Utah State turned to Carroll, who took the team on his back and provided the offense for the Aggies. In a 10-minute stretch, Carroll scored 21 out of 25 points for Utah State.
“We finally screened better for Jaycee and got him some looks,” Morrill said. “Plus, he made some looks where he wasn’t really open. He just jumped up and shot them in.”
After seeing Nevada’s lead balloon to as many as 18 points, Utah State did something it has been unable to do up to this point in the season: They put a run together to get back into the game.
With three minutes remaining and trailing by 11 points, Aggie center Gary Wilkinson scored eight points, including two 3-point plays to help the Aggies get the score back to four points at 78-74 with 46 seconds remaining in the game.
“Each game we are trying to get better,” Wesley said. “Once we get down, we have to battle back.”
Morrill agreed.
“We kept battling, kept fighting,” he said. “We have to play with that kind of focus and intensity if we want to win on the road.”
Despite Utah State’s best effort, they were never able to pull closer than that as Nevada converted on 7-of-8 free throws down the stretch to hang on.
“We shoot 51 percent (from the field), we shoot 46 percent from 3, we out-rebound them by three, we only turn it over 10 times, and we lose,” Morrill said. “It’s not like you look at it and say we played horrible. We just had some stretches where we didn’t play well.”
One big reason the Aggies struggled at times was because of the defensive play of Nevada big man Javale McGee, as the seven-footer blocked six shots in the game.
“He’s so long and so quick,” Morrill explained. “He changes the game with his size.”
Wolf Pack guard Armon Johnson scored 16 points and dished out six assist for his team, which now stands in a second-place tie with Boise State and New Mexico State in the Western Athletic Conference standings.
Utah State is still first with an 8-2 record, while the second place teams sit at 8-3.
Hawaii, whom the Aggies visit Saturday night, stand alone in fifth place with a conference record of 6-4.
-sam.bryner@aggiemail.usu.edu