Pane steps up against in-state rival Cougars
As Utah State’s lone returning starter, Brockeith Pane has grown into his role as team leader in Friday’s 69-62 win over Brigham Young, leading all scorers with 21 points.
“I want to win,” the Dallas native said. “I’ll do whatever it takes to help my team win.”
Pane spent much of the first half on the bench in foul trouble and all three of his fouls were charging violations.
“It was very frustrating,” he said. “I wanted to be out there with my team.”
The Aggies used an 11-0 run in the second half to win the game, helped in part by Pane’s ability to drive through the holes in BYU’s zone defense.
“It’s a team effort,” he said. “A lot of guys can make plays. That was a big zone. I was able to get in little cracks sometimes, throw a floater, hit Preston (Medlin) for shots, hit Brady (Jardine).”
Pane scored 17 points in the second half, but the most important part of his game was on the defensive end when he and forward Kyisean Reed convinced USU head coach Stew Morrill to pressure BYU point guard Brock Zylstra.
“That was a key part in the game,” Morrill said. “(Pane) and Kyisean came up with the two-man press on their own. That was pretty smart. (BYU has) got an inexperienced point guard who’s not really a point and they just got after him a little bit.”
“I just wanted to help my team to victory,” Pane said. “They didn’t have a true point so I wanted to handle point. I tried to pressure the ball as much as I could.”
There wasn’t much Pane did poorly in the game. He made 8 of 8 from the foul line and finished with three steals, four rebounds and five assists.
“I had six turnovers, so that’s not good,” he said. “That was a problem for me last year. I want to be known as one of the top guards around the country. Something I cannot do is turn the ball over because that’s taking six possessions away from us to score.”
Morrill said Pane is as hard on himself as anyone else is.
“He expects that from himself,” Morrill said. “Sometimes when you’re as good a player as him you can try to do too much. He got downhill a lot and got in the lane and made some plays.”
Aggie forward Brady Jardine said USU would not have won the game without Pane’s second half performance.
“He played huge for us in the second half,” Jardine said. “We were kind of joking at halftime, I was saying he was going to have a big second half, tapped him on the butt and said ‘let’s go’ and he came out and did that. It was a huge part of winning that game.”
– tavin.stucki@aggiemail.usu.edu