Newbold lifts Ags to championship game
On the road and on the ropes, the Aggies looked to be in dire need of some Spectrum magic if they wished to advance to the WAC championship game, but there was one problem … they weren’t at the Spectrum.
Nevertheless, there was magic to be found. Tai Wesley found a wide open Tyler Newbold with 3.1 seconds to play, and Newbold’s jumper found the bottom of the net to give the Aggies (29-4, 14-2) their first lead of the second half and propel them to a thrilling 71-70 come from behind win against New Mexico State (17-15, 9-7).
“You really don’t have much time to think, you’ve just got to shoot it and trust your stroke,” said Newbold of the game winning shot. “That shot I had time to think about it if I wanted to because I was wide open – it was really just having good form and following through … it was a great feeling, and it’s a great opportunity that we have tomorrow.”
As hard as it was to come by, USU’s 29th victory set a new school record for most wins in a season. It also gives them the second most wins in the country behind Memphis’s 30.
“I don’t remember in the 23 years I’ve been a head coach that I’ve ever been prouder of a team,” said USU head coach Stew Morrill. “This has been a character team all year long, and they showed their character in its finest form tonight. Just a great win for us.”
Six minutes into Friday night’s contest though, it didn’t look like the game would come down to such a thrilling finish. Behind a 7-of-7 shooting start, the northern Aggies jumped out to an early 17-7 lead and looked to be well on their way to their second consecutive tournament blowout.
As quickly as the Ags started though, they cooled off. And when they did, the southern Aggies found their range.
New Mexico State connected on five consecutive 3-point attempts on their way to going 8-of-11 from downtown in the first half, and surged ahead of USU. All told, NMSU outscored the Ags by 23 points over the final 14 minutes to carry a commanding 47-34 lead into the intermission.
“We’ve have a tendency sometimes to get up on a team and then we kind of let off and we don’t keep pushing,” said senior Gary Wilkinson. “If we want to keep moving forward as a team, I think that’s our next step is defensively when we get ahead of a team to continue to keep the pressure up and keep moving in that direction.”
The Newmags, aided by multiple USU turnovers, shot a scorching 60 percent from the floor in the opening stanza. They were even more deadly from 3-point land, as they connected on 72.7 percent of their attempts from beyond the arc.
Jonathon Gibson and Jahmar Young led New Mexico State’s charge – especially in the first half. Gibson tallied 14 points on 5-of-7 shooting while Young chipped in nine in the opening period.
Trailing by 13, a deficit that the Aggies hadn’t been able to battle back from since 2006, USU’s chances of going dancing seemed to be shrinking by the minute.
However, as this Aggie team has done all season in both wins and losses, they battled back. USU used a 13-3 run to open the second half and claw back within three, 50-47, with 16 minutes remaining.
Over the next 10 minutes the teams battled back and forth with the Ags getting as close as two and New Mexico State extending the lead to as many as eight. With just over five minutes left to play Young connected on his third 3 of the game to put the Newmags up 68-60.
Staring the NIT in the face, Utah State mounted one final run. Sparked by fiery forward Tai Wesley the Ags converted four consecutive free throws and shut New Mexico State’s offense down to cut the lead in half.
“The whole time in the second half I was thinking this is our season, this is really a make or break moment in our season – we lose and most likely we’re going to the NIT and if we win we keep our dream alive,” Wesley said.
With 2:47 to play, Wilkinson put the Ags as close as they’d been since losing the lead, when he rebounded his own miss and was able to put it back while getting fouled. He converted the old-fashioned three-point play, and pulled the Aggies within one.
USU’s lone senior led the Ags with 19 points while Wesley chipped in 13 to go along with seven boards and seven assists.
After trading baskets the Aggies were still down one, and a foul by Jared Quayle put NMSU’s Hernst Laroche at the line shooting one-and-one with 32.2 seconds left in the game. Laroche missed the first attempt, but much to the chagrin of USU, the Newmags were able to pull down the rebound.
Enter Tyler Newbold.
The scrappy sophomore tied up Gibson, and with the arrow pointing to USU, it was the Ags ball with 30.9 to play … and Newbold wasn’t done yet.
After a timeout, the Aggies worked the ball inside to Wesley. He put up a shot with about nine seconds remaining, but the ball rimmed out and a scramble ensued. With 6.7 seconds left the ball was knocked out of bounds off a NMSU player – USU basketball.
On the ensuing inbounds, a play was again drawn up for Wesley, but as the defense collapsed he found a very, very wide-open Newbold.
Jump. Shoot. Swish.
“The play right before that I had the shot, coach called my number and I missed it and he called my number again and I was wondering why coach had so much confidence in me,” Wesley said. “I caught the ball and almost shot it, but I saw Gary and Tyler standing over there wide open so I hit Tyler and it worked out. It was kind of a payback for when he gave me a ‘pass’ for a game winner against Utah, so I thought I’d just get Tyler back with that one.”
And like New Mexico State’s upset bid, Young’s desperation 3 at the buzzer fell just short.
After the game, Morrill had high praise for Newbold.
“Tyler Newbold is just solid, steady, stable, can guard, can pass, can make shots, he’s just a blue-collar basketball player,” he said. “You love that about him as a coach.”
The Aggies will now face tournament host and No. 2 seed Nevada in the championship game, as the Wolf Pack overcame a halftime deficit themselves to beat Louisiana Tech and advance.
Tipoff is scheduled for 8:00 p.m. Mountain time, and the game will be televised on ESPN 2.
–t.olsen@aggiemail.usu.edu