Four-woman band leads Aggies to start season
This past week the Utah State Aggies Women’s Basketball team split its two games, earning a 70-63 win against the Seattle University Redhawks and taking a 109-52 loss against the no.1 ranked Oregon Ducks. The two games put the Aggies record at 1-2 on the season and while the two results are near polar opposites — winning by seven and then losing by 57 — the Aggies were up against two completely different levels of competition. Coming into the matchup, Seattle had a 10-point win over the Saint Martin’s Saints, a division-two team. Coming into its matchup against the Aggies, the Oregon Ducks had logged a seven-point win against the United States Women’s National Team. It is, therefore, not overly surprising that the Aggies would have such a wide swing in their performances.
In their game against Seattle, the Aggies came out of the gates quickly, scoring first, and ending the quarter with a score of 19-to-7. While the Redhawks never gave up — they would go on to tie the game in the third quarter — the Redhawks were never able to take a lead, and except for a few tense minutes throughout the game, the Aggies were able to pull away with a win comfortably.
Against Oregon, it was a completely different story. The Ducks put their foot on the gas coming out of the gate and didn’t let up. They increased their output every quarter except for the third scoring 25 in the first quarter, 27 in the second, 25 in the third, and 31 in the fourth. The Aggies followed this trend as well until the fourth quarter scoring 10, 16, 18, and eight respectively. While the Aggies did have four players in double figures — sophomore guard Steph Gorman lead the team with 13 — they only received eight total points from the rest of the roster. The lack of depth scoring didn’t hurt the Aggies in their matchup against the Redhawks, but against the number one school in the country, that lack of help showed as a glaring weakness.
Statistically, the two games are hard to put together. The Oregon game is an outlier that will likely not be seen again this season, but the numbers do tell a story. The paint was not kind to the Aggies, in both games, the Aggies lost the rebound battle; in the two games combined, the Aggies were out rebounded 90-to-65, letting both Seattle and Oregon pull down 45 rebounds a piece. Combined, the Aggies allowed 37 second-chance points, gifting 15 points to Seattle on 18 offensive rebounds and 22 points to Oregon on 14 offensive rebounds. Ball security was also an issue as Utah State would turn the ball over 30 times over two games; however, they were able to improve from the 17 turnovers that the team gave up against Seattle, only letting the ball go 13 times against Oregon.
Despite the flaws, the Aggies were able to do a lot of things right. From the free-throw line the Aggies enjoyed a fair amount of success, shooting 70-percent on 20 shots. They also were able to play solid defense against the Redhawks, stealing the ball 15 times. But against Oregon, the Aggies weren’t able to take the ball away with consistency — only getting one steal — but the team did force the Ducks to turn the ball over 10 times.
One stand out performer for the Aggies was sophomore guard Steph Gorman. She scored a career high 28 points against the Redhawks and a solid 13 against Oregon, giving her 42 points in two games for an average of 21 points per game. She was also able to average 5.5 rebounds per game, pulling down six against the Redhawks and five against the Ducks. She earned three steals against the Redhawks and only turned the ball over twice in the course of the two games. Gorman led the team in points in both games and had eight three-pointers overall on 57% shooting. The Aggies also had key scoring from senior guard Lindsey Jensen-Baker (26), senior forward Marlene Aniambossou (23), and senior forward Hailey Bassett (18).
In all, the Aggies came away from the two games with the expected result. They demonstrated that they can win the games that they should and they also helped demonstrate why Oregon is so feared throughout the NCAA.
Twitter: @Crooked_sports