The Fab Four: A memorable senior men’s basketball class
The 2019-20 senior class of Utah State basketball will go down as one of the greatest.
The four men who make up the graduating group — Sam Merrill, Diogo Brito, Abel Porter and Roche Grootfaam — amassed 3,445 points, 946 assists and 1,101 rebounds for the Aggie cause. But more than individual accolades, the greatest accomplishment of these seniors came not from their stats, but rather in their joint success as a team.
Two years ago, one could hardly envision the kind of success that will soon be memorialized in Aggie lore. Entering the 2018-19 season, the Mountain West preseason poll predicted Utah State would finish ninth come year’s end. It encapsulated USU’s basketball woes in the post-Stew Morrill era.
Rather than accept the ignominious prediction, these seniors — along with a determined youth movement — proved all doubters wrong by claiming the university’s first-ever Mountain West regular season title and conference tournament crown. The latter, in turn, handed the Aggies its highest-ever seed in the NCAA Tournament: an 8.
One year later, these seniors were once again doubted because of a lackluster season compared to preseason expectations and the rise of San Diego State to top-five AP rank status. But they shocked the world with a stunning upset of the Aztecs in Las Vegas to repeat as conquerors of the west.
These are the four men who make up one of the finest groups of seniors in USU history.
Roche Grootfaam: The Practice Monster
“If there was one guy that you wanted to have a special, shining moment, it was Roche (Grootfaam),” Diogo Brito said.
Likely the least known, or, more accurately, the least seen, among the Aggie seniors was a man who could not be missed on the practice court. Grootfaam only logged 63 on-court minutes for Utah State in two seasons. On senior night, he was given 10 minutes against San Jose State, which wound up being the longest he got in a game against a Division I foe.
His time on the court in Logan that night, much like his entire career with the Aggies, was short. Much of that had to do with an ACL injury that ended his 2018-19 season before it started. In addition, the emergence of Justin Bean last year and the addition of Alphonso Anderson, Grootfaam never really got his true shot.
Even against SJSU, Grootfaam didn’t even make it into the game until the 11:45 mark of the second half. When he did play, he immediately began trying to make the most of his last chance to impress the home crowd. With 11:01 on the clock, Grootfaam took his first shot and missed. Another missed attempt came two possessions later. With 8:21 remaining, his third attempt went in, accompanied by the roar of a crowd fully aware of what that bucket meant.
At the 2:47 mark, Grootfaam would one-up that five-foot hook shot with a moment that will stay with him forever: Setting up on the left block, Grootfaam posted up for the sixth time that night. The previous five had all ended with right-handed hook shots with only the one falling through the bottom of the net.
This time, the approach was slightly different. When Grootfaam noticed a chink in the one-on-one post defense, he rolled toward the basket and all 265 pounds of determined basketball player rose straight into the air. He threw down his weight in disrespect upon the poor, unsuspecting head of Seneca Knight with a dunk that forced the bench up on its feet and brought the house down.
ROCHE GROOTFAAM‼️
💪💪 @lifeofche15#AggiesAllTheWay#SCtop10 pic.twitter.com/zBEkj89DNM
— USU Men's Hoops (@USUBasketball) February 26, 2020
It was a brief shining moment for the young man, a culmination of hard work which many of the cheering crowd assumed, but his teammates knew fully. Each man on the bench went crazy not just because of the highlight-worthy nature of the play, but because they saw just how hard Grootfaam worked behind the scenes.
“There’s not a lot of guys that I’ve seen in my 18 years of playing basketball that bring so much energy and make their presence known so much as Roche in every single practice,” Brito said.
Abel Porter: “Mr. Dependable”
“We all know his story and what he’s done. He is Mr. Dependable and Mr. Reliable and just does everything you ask and certainly has been a huge part of what we’ve done.” – Craig Smith
Porter’s story is an underdog tale at an underdog university. A walk-on for two-and-a-half seasons out of Davis High School, he had to wait his turn behind higher-rated guards until finally his shot came. In a seeming epiphany from Smith, the then-redshirt sophomore Porter saw a mid-season increase in minutes around the start conference play in 2018-19. Later, he was upgraded to an out-of-the-blue start against Colorado State. Then, in his second career start, Porter hit the shot of his life — a buzzer-beating, game-winning 3-pointer on the road against New Mexico.
Abel Porter just became the biggest villain in New Mexico since Walter White. #AggiesAllTheWay @Ah_bell | @USUBasketball pic.twitter.com/6YT0QEWX7T
— Stadium (@Stadium) January 27, 2019
Almost immediately afterward, Porter received a scholarship, and he returned that generosity from the university by being a reliable starting point guard during the Mountain West championship run. In 17 starts spanning January to March, Porter averaged 8.1 points, 3.8 assists, 3.5 rebounds, just 1.6 turnovers and led the team in 3-point percentage with a 45.5 % rate.
The departure of Porter is a complicated one. All through the season, Smith spoke of his starting point guard as though he were a senior and Porter received a senior’s farewell in the final home game against San Jose State. The 24-year-old has not exhausted his NCAA eligibility as of yet, but it was clear he would leave at the end of the season. Presumably, it meant entering the workforce with his multiple degrees in business. However, Porter entered the transfer portal, and now the Aggie-world awaits news of where he will take his talents.
Diogo Brito: The Swiss-Army Knife
“I felt like we grew together and we did this together. He’s such a competitive guy and he takes losing as hard as anybody,” Sam Merrill said.
Brito is the second-most recognizable senior on the team behind Merrill, but his efforts went almost as far as his more famous teammate. In terms of counting stats, Brito’s efforts don’t seem to measure up against your average four-year Aggie. But that’s not where the Portuguese Swiss Army Knife made his mark. True to that informal nickname, Brito did a little bit of everything at Utah State and did all of it at an above-average, sometimes elite, level.
Brito’s senior night became a special affair. As he paced onto the court for the pregame ceremony, Brito walked alongside his parents who were in the United State for the first time in their lives. After four years of watching from 5,000 miles away in their native Portugal, Jose and Maria were able to watch their son don an Aggie uniform, in person at his home stadium. According to Diogo, it was his parent’s first time in the United States.
“Before walking on the floor, I was just telling my mom, ‘please don’t cry’ because the only way I usually cry in public is if my mom starts crying,” Brito said.
Luckily for the Brito family’s pride, they held back the tears, but Diogo said being able to walk across the Spectrum court with his parents is “something that I’ll never forget.”
That night, Brito put on his typical all-around show with just six points, but also five rebounds, five assists and a pair of steals to show off his defensive prowess. Later, in the conference tournament, Brito helped save USU’s season with one of his best performances of the year. He scored 15 points — his highest total against a Mountain West opponent in more than a year — which he paired with seven rebounds in a comeback win for the Aggies.
Sam Merrill: The Newest Legend
“Sam Merrill will go down as one of the best players to ever put on an Aggie uniform.” -Craig Smith
The ending of the 2019-20 season will live on as one of the most bittersweet conclusions in USU basketball history. On the one hand, Merrill completed what may be the greatest two-year run in Mountain West Tournament history. Between this season and last, Merrill averaged 25.3 points, 4.7 rebounds and 3.8 assists, all the while shooting north of 50% from the field and 35% on 3-pointers.
A long line of brilliantly strung together performances culminated in what is now Utah State’s version of “The Shot.” With 2.5 seconds on the clock, Merrill buried a game-winning 3-point dagger in the heart of Aztec nation.
SAM MERRILL, ONIONS pic.twitter.com/PrXYv0DQVu
— CBS Sports (@CBSSports) March 8, 2020
Before that moment, it was unknown if the Aggies would manage to crack the 68-team NCAA Tournament field.
“After we lost at New Mexico, we as a team felt almost an urgency that we had to win the whole thing,” Merrill said. “Maybe we would have made it if we lost in the championship game, but I personally felt a responsibility and an urgency to play my best this last weekend because I didn’t have my best game at New Mexico. And I wasn’t sure that I had it in me to play that well.”
After Merrill’s now-legendary shot, Utah State’s postseason destiny seemed secure with hope restored for a magical end to the season.
“To be able to beat a team like that and finish the way we did, because I know that a lot of people, I know that a lot of our fans lost faith in us after we lost four out of five and then lost again at New Mexico,” Merrill said. “I just always felt like we had it and we were good enough and we had the right guys and the right character as a team to put a run like that together and that’s what we did.”
Ten days later, the team learned that rather than extending the season, Merrill’s shot had ended it.
“We were expecting it was going to happen, just because of all the cancellations that had gone on,” said Merrill. “But even then, when you’re expecting it, it was tough knowing that not only we weren’t going to play in the tournament, that we weren’t going to have that opportunity, but 30 minutes later it finally hit me that, like, that was it. My career ended just like that.”
For Merrill, the sweet taste of victory became the bittersweet taste. He knew how special the win was but lacked the fulfillment of one last dream: winning an NCAA Tournament game.
During his time at Utah State, Merrill made it clear that he wasn’t content with short runs in the conference tournament or even a simple appearance in the Big Dance. He wanted to win a game on college basketball’s biggest stage. Last year, his own failures contributed to falling short of that dream. In USU’s opening game against Washington, Merrill scored just 10 points on 2 of 9 shooting from the field in what became a 17-point loss.
Though not ideal, Merrill ended his time in Logan with a legendary moment fitting a historic career. His 2,197 total points put him in the 2,000-point club which holds roughly 600 members in the NCAA’s long history. Merrill also now stands as the only Aggie to be top-five in career points and assists in the school’s record books. His individual accomplishment, along with what he did alongside his teammates, will live on in the annals of history.
— jasonswalker94@gmail.com