Turnovers lead to costly season opener loss
The men’s basketball team dropped their season opener 88-71 for the first time in 12 seasons to Northwestern State, in front of the third-largest attendance for Northwestern State.
The last time the Aggies lost an opener was to Stew Morrill’s Montana State team in 1993.
In the pre-game show, Morrill gave some key points he thought the team needed to accomplish in order to come out with a win.
“We need to handle the ball,” Morrill said.
But they weren’t exactly able to handle the ball. The Aggies racked up a total of 21 turnovers, which helped give the edge to the Demons. Northwestern State Head Coach Mick McConathy said it was one of the biggest wins for his program.
The first part of the first half looked good for the Aggies as they were able to go ahead with a seven-point lead and the offense was clicking.
Aggie star shooting guard, Jaycee Carroll, came down on a Demon foot and twisted his ankle while making his seventh point, giving him a limp for the rest the game. The injury did not slow down his scoring as he went on to score 19 points on the night.
Making a mental mistake midway through the first half, the Demons came onto the floor with six players. The play started and the open man for the Demons made a long-range two. The refs blew the whistle for the foul, but decided that since the whistle wasn’t blown until the ball was in the air that the basket would count. Durrall Peterson shot the technicals for the Aggies.
Turnovers started to plague the Aggies late in the first half. Sparked by a few steals and unforced turnovers, the Demons were able to put together a 16-2 run to jump ahead of the Aggies and take a 42-39 half time lead.
Bench play was also a big key for the Demons success as 21 of their 42 first half points came from the bench, as opposed to 11 points for the Aggie bench in the half. Despite going into the locker room down at the half, the Aggies managed to put together a solid half. They shot 58 percent and were able to put together a few successful runs on the Demons. The second half was completely different.
“We pulled apart at the end,” Head Coach Stew Morrill said of the team’s second-half performance. “Our defense was atrocious. We got pounded on the boards in the second half.”
After 13 first-half turnovers, the Aggies came out of the gate at halftime and turned the ball over on the first play and the Demons never looked back.
The Aggie defense had no answer for the solid shooting and easy buckets by the Demons. They shot 65 percent from the field in the second half, compared to the 41 percent shot by the Aggies. The Demons had five players in double figures by the end of the game, three coming off the bench. The Demons were also able to chalk up 16 steals before the night was over.
Three point shooting was also a sore spot for the Aggies as they shot 22.2 percent (4-18) from behind the arch, while NSU shot 46.2 percent (6-13).
Despite twisting his ankle early in the game, junior guard Jaycee Carroll became the 32nd Aggie to score 1,000 career points. Carroll finished with 19 points on the night and was followed by Nick Hammer who scored a career-high 12 points. Chris Sessions, Peterson and Chaz Spicer each added nine points for the Aggies.
When asked about his team’s performance, Morrill said, “You’ve got to have character and talent in order to be good. You can have talent, but if you don’t have character you won’t be good. You need both. We have got to work on that as a team.”
The Aggies will have a week to work together to get ready for Centenary at the Top of the World Classic in Alaska on Nov. 17.
-wwm@cc.usu.edu