Queta re-injures knee, Aggies beat Florida
At the 6:58 mark of the first half in Utah State’s neutral-site matchup with Florida, recently-returned sophomore center Neemias Queta re-injured his left knee in a collision with a Gators player under the basket.
Despite this setback, USU went on to defeat the formerly-ranked Florida 65-62 at BB&T Arena in Sunrise, Florida, a town four hours away from the home of the Gators.
Without its star center, Utah State struggled in several areas, particularly on offense but also in the rebounding department. For just the second time this season, the Aggies were out-rebounded by an opponent with Florida posting a 41-33 advantage on the glass; 18 of those were offensive rebounds, the most given up by USU since a 2017 loss to Nevada.
But where one star was conspicuously lacking, another shone brighter in its place.
Sam Merrill, fresh of a 21-point performance that saved the Aggies skin in an overtime win over South Florida, scored another 21 points on 8 of 18 shooting, including a 5 for 10 effort on 3-pointers. Not only that, the senior tied for the team lead in rebounds, snagging nine to match teammate Justin Bean. Merrill also tied for the team lead in assists with five, even with Diogo Brito.
“Sam Merrill was absolutely outstanding tonight,” USU head coach Craig Smith said. “He just does everything for us. Great facilitator, obviously he can score, he got cooking there throughout the whole game but especially the second half. Just really made some great plays for us.”
That offensive performance provided crucial points in a game where neither team could find scoring consistently. Florida opened the game with legendarily bad shooting, missing its first 14 shots. Utah State couldn’t do much better on offense, only managing to build a 7-2 lead in the first 8:49 of the game where the Gators did not make a single field goal. Smith compared the start of the game to a root canal.
Both teams would eventually heat up, but scoring would be a rare commodity at several points later on in the game. Florida went on to have two more 0 for 8 shooting droughts. Utah State never had such awful shooting stretches, but 16 turnovers on the night put a damper on points potential. The free throws Utah State normally get (they’re fifth in the nation in attempts at the charity stripe), simply weren’t there. Both teams were called for 17 fouls, but Florida had a 22-11 advantage in free throw attempts.
Because Utah State refused to pull away from the stone-cold-shooting Gators, Florida were able to do just enough to hold a 55-54 lead with just over six minutes left to play. From there, however, Utah State took and maintained control of the game thanks to a 7-0 run (the run coming during one of Florida’s aforementioned 0 for 8 shooting runs). Brito scored six of USU’s next 10 points, four of those coming on free throws after take fouls by Florida.
The win concluded a short road trip that featured two neutral site matchups, first with South Florida in Houston and then in Florida against the Gators. The Aggies will return to the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum for a home matchup with Easter Oregon on Dec. 28. That will precede a Jan. 1 return to Mountain West play for Utah State. They will play UNLV on the first day of the new year.