Men’s hoops come up short against Colorado State
The storybook ending didn’t pan out for Stew Morrill and Utah State.
USU lost 75-70 at home to Colorado State on senior night.
“We just wanted to send him off on a good note,” junior guard Chris Smith said. “We just couldn’t get it done at the end. We just need to play smarter. We should have executed better but we didn’t.”
Colorado State senior forward J.J. Avila led all scorers with 29 points. He also had 13 rebounds, five steals and four assists to fill up the stat sheet and give his team a hard-fought road victory.
“He had an unbelievable game,” Morrill said. “He steals the ball, gets offensive rebounds, and scores 29 points. He’s obviously a great player.”
After trailing the entire second half, Colorado State took the lead with 1:13 to play. USU guard Darius Perkins stepped up and hit a 3-pointer to give the lead back to the Aggies. With 55 seconds left, Avila hit a layup, followed by a transition Stanton Kidd dunk to put CSU up 71-68.
“They just played smarter than us,” Morrill said. “We just had some really dumb plays down the stretch. We take a bad shot, we turn it over three straight times. We were in a position to win the game and we just played unintelligent basketball.”
Utah State had a chance to tie the game with the ball, down three and 12 seconds to play but a Perkins pass was intercepted by CSU guard Gian Clavell. Clavell sank his free throws and USU’s hopes for a win.
“Colorado State is great team,” said Aggie guard Jojo McGlaston, who scored 14 points and had five rebounds with one block while coming off the bench. “It was rough towards the end. Three separate turnovers down the stretch but we’ve got to bounce back and get ready for the tournament.”
Junior Chris Smith scored a team-high 24 points for the Aggies. Sophomore Jalen Moore had an off nigh shooting the ball, going 2 of 8 from behind the 3-point arc and just 5 of 13 from the floor. He finished with 14 points and nine rebounds.
Normally-active David Collette got in early foul trouble and had to sit much of the game. He played 19 minutes and fouled out with 2:24 to play. Collette scored 10 points and had four rebounds before he fouled out.
Next up for Utah State is the Mountain West tournament. The Aggies face the Wyoming Cowboys in their first game, a team they just lost to 76-53 on Wednesday.
“Right now they’re dejected, disappointed and heart broken,” Morrill said. “College kids are pretty resilient, they bounce back pretty quick. I’ll be surprised if they aren’t ready to play Thursday.”
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Twitter: @kalen_taylor