Merrill scores 28, Aggies win big over CSU

For a solid stretch of Saturday night’s basketball game at the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum, it appeared as though Utah State — after holding a 14-point lead at the 8:22 mark in the first half — might give away another big lead to a Mountain West foe.

Not on Sam Merrill’s watch.

When the Rams charged back into the game, tying it 31-31 early in the second half and then briefly taking the lead twice later on, Merrill didn’t lose his composure. But rather, he flashed the extraordinary form that won him Mountain West Player of the Year last season, willing Utah State to a 77-61 victory.

Merrill scored 28 highly efficient points — 18 in the second half — making 10 of 15 shots on the night including a 5 for 7 mark from 3-point land. He also added five assists with zero turnovers.

“Sam was unbelievable,” USU head coach Craig Smith said. “He was doing Sam Merrill things. He was in a groove, his shot looked smooth, he was just making plays.”

While Merrill’s stellar performance jumps off on the stat sheet, perhaps the real hero of the night was Utah State’s defense late into the second half.

Integral to Colorado State’s comeback was a shooting stretch where they made 12 of 21 field goal attempts (5 of 6 from downtown). That took the game from being the early stages of a blowout at 25-11, to a Colorado State 49-46 lead; a 38-21 run in all.

“That’s kind of what (Colorado State) does, they go on runs,” Merrill said. “They can get hot from three and have a lot of weapons.”

After the 12th made shot of said run, however, USU clamped down with a vengeance. Of the final 22 shots the Rams attempted, they made a mere four, or 18.2 percent. That cleared the way for the Aggies to outscore Colorado State 25-9 over the final 12:09.

The exemplar of this extreme improvement in shooting defense was a play made by Alphonso Anderson before Colorado State’s shooting hands had fully cooled off. With the game tied 52-52, a bad pass intended for Anderson made its way into the hands of Kris Martin who sprinted down the court for what he imagined would be a pick-six layup. Instead of allowing Martin’s head start on the break to deter him, Anderson chased the play down and ended it with a highlight-reel block.

“(Martin) had a few steps on me and got the steal,” Anderson said of the play, “but I heard (someone on the bench) say ‘dunk’ and I was like, ‘nah, he’s not getting a dunk.”

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Shoring up the defense made essentially all the difference in the second half for a team that still has embarrassing losses to Air Force and Boise State that featured huge blown leads.

“When they made that run at the end of the first half, obviously we were disappointed,” Merrill said. “ But we felt like if we shore up a couple of things we’d be able to stretch out a lead and the biggest thing was we did was on the defensive end.”

One of the tougher matchups on the defensive end of the court was the Rams’ all-conference center, Nico Carvacho. The 245-pound behemoth is averaging a little over 12 points and 10 rebounds this season, in addition, can be a one-on-one nightmare in the post. But the Aggies slowed him down, holding Carvacho to 14 points on 12 field goal attempts.

“Our post defense was very good all night long,” Smith said. “Whether it was (Queta), Trevin (Dorius), (Justin)  Bean and (Anderson).

While the defense cleaned up on its end, the offense flourished in ways it hadn’t for just about all of conference play. The Aggies made 68 percent of its attempts in the second half and were 4 of 6 from three (Merrill accounting for three of those makes from deep). By the end of the night, USU set a new season-high in field goal percentage at 59.2 percent.

Along with Merrill’s 28 points, Bean added 13 as the second leading scorer and was one rebound away from another double-double. His nine rebounds were still a team-high. Queta had 10 points and seven rebounds along with season highs in assists (five) and tying for his season-best in blocks (three).

Utah State has now won three of its last four games after a season-altering three-game losing streak. They will take that run of form on the road Tuesday at Wyoming for the Aggies’ first matchup with the Cowboys (5-16, 0-9) this season.

Twitter: @thejwalk67