Looking to avenge ’06 loss to Broncos
After playing eight games in 16 days to start off the 2007-08 season, the USU men’s basketball team has experienced something new this week-a break between playing games.
Utah State will be going into Saturday’s 7:05 p.m. game against the University of Santa Clara having not played a game since last Saturday, when they downed the University of Iowa 75-62 to finish third place at the South Padre Invitational.
Utah State (4-4) will look to improve to 4-0 at home and 5-4 overall for the season as they host the Broncos (4-1).
The next four games the Aggies play will be over a span of 25 days, giving the team much-needed practice time to help new players learn Stew Morrill’s system and to better prepare for their opponents. One area the Aggies will be working on is holding onto the ball. For the season, Utah State has already amassed 135 turnovers, or 16.8 per game. However, in their win against Iowa, the Aggies recorded a season-low seven turnovers.
The Aggies will need to continue hanging onto the ball if they want to beat the Broncos. Santa Clara beat the University of Utah on the road. The Broncos’ lone loss of the season came at Nevada, 67-54.
The leading scorer for the Broncos is junior center John Bryant, who is averaging 23.6 points and nine rebounds per game, while junior guard Calvin Johnson is averaging 15.3 points.
Santa Clara returns two starters and eight letter-winners from last year’s team that went 21-10, including a 77-75 overtime victory over Utah State last season. In that game, Aggie big man Stephen DuCharme recorded a season-high 22 points and 11 rebounds.
Jaycee Carroll will look to improve on his performance from last year as he recorded a season-low 14 points. Utah State had a chance to win the game at the buzzer when guard Mikel Watson’s running jump shot rolled out as time expired and DuCharme’s tip-in was waived off because the buzzer had already sounded. In overtime, Santa Clara started off quickly by scoring six of the first eight points to build a four-point lead before hitting four straight free throws in the final 25 seconds.
A trend for Utah State has been that it wins when Carroll scores 20 or more points. For Carroll’s entire career, he has scored 20 or more points 39 times, and USU is 32-7 in those games. This year, Carroll is averaging 19.8 points and 7.3 rebounds per game while shooting 49 percent from the field, 48 percent from 3-point range and 94 percent from the free-throw line.
Also averaging double-digit scoring for Utah State this season is DuCharme, who is averaging 13.6 points. Junior forward Gary Wilkinson averages 10.1 points.
DuCharme is coming off a week where he was named the Western Athletic Conference player of the week as he scored 40 points over the Aggies two games in the South Padre Invitational. He also put in 10 points in the Aggies’ win over Austin Peay on Nov. 20.
Senior guard Kris Clark and junior forward DeUndrae Spraggins are coming off of career games against Iowa. Clark recorded a career-high nine assists while Spraggins scored 14 points and dished out five assists.
-sam.bryner@aggiemail.usu.edu