Turnovers, lack of defense doom USU in the Pavillion
BOISE, Idaho – Despite a season record of 12 3-point shots for the Utah State basketball team, an above-average number of turnovers and poor defense left the Aggies with a heartbreaking loss in overtime vs. Boise State University Saturday, 78-77.
These factors culminated with the final play of the game when Bernard Rock was handed the ball with about 13 seconds on the clock. Rock had the ball, lost it on the dribble, regained possession, lost it again and fumbled around with it on the ground but couldn’t regain enough control to get a shot off as he lost it a third time. The seconds ticked away and the game was over.
“You look at the last play in a game like that, and it’s easy to say, ‘In that last play we didn’t get done what we needed to get done,'” said head coach Stew Morrill. “Geeze, you can look at that and say it cost us a game. But what we need to look at is why as a team we couldn’t get any defensive stops.”
The Aggies’ above-average turnovers were similarly frustrating as call after call after call was made against them in the first half – almost every time for traveling. In fact, by the end of the half USU had 13 turnovers – nearly matching its season turnover-per-game average of 14.8 – and there was still another half to play.
“We turned the ball over too much,” Rock said.
Dimitri Jorssen, center, racked up five turnovers – the most for the team – had zero assists and fouled out toward the end of the last half.
Rock came in second with four turnovers and four assists and Dion Bailey, forward, had three turnovers and two assists.
Shawn Daniels, power forward, and Brennan Ray (who played 11 minutes) were the only team members with zero turnovers.
USU stayed in the game, however, nailing 3-pointers left and right in the second half, staying neck-and-neck with BSU most of the game.