USU loses close battle to New Mexico State
Despite digging themselves out of a 17-point deficit, the Utah State Aggies couldn’t land a shot in the final 1.6 seconds of the game and fell to New Mexico State 72-70, Saturday night in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
New Mexico State enjoyed a tremendous home court advantage with over 11,000 fans in attendance as they won the WAC championship game, advancing them to the NCAA Tournament.
“I thought we did everything we could in the second half to give ourselves a chance,” USU head coach Stew Morrill said. “The guys hung in there and kept battling and we had a lot of chances. It’s kind of how we’ve been all year. Unfortunately we’re playing the conference championship on a non-neutral court and that was a tremendous advantage for New Mexico State, and that’s the way it works sometimes. I’m not saying that’s why they won but it sure helped to have 11,000 extra people on their side out there and the crowd was rooting for them.”
The southern Aggies came out with a fast-paced attack that left the Aggies stunned and behind 16-2 in just minutes. NMSU forward, and WAC Tournament MVP, Justin Hawkins led the scoring onslaught. He was joined in scoring by senior guard Elijah Ingram.
During this stretch, USU was hampered by NMSU’s full court press and tight defense on the perimeter, preventing them from getting in scoring position.
“That was kind of like when we played here three or four weeks ago,” Morrill said of NMSU’s initial scoring run. “They just kind of take you by storm. They got a lot of easy baskets in transition. They got some turnovers off the press and we kind of dug ourselves a hole.”
USU junior guard Jaycee Carroll responded, breaking the press and dropping in a layup. He was fouled on the play and scored the ensuing point after. Carroll struggled to get free long enough to get open shots and ended the half with only seven points.
NMSU continued their high-scoring attack throughout the majority of the first half and extended the lead to 17 points, their largest lead of the game. With the score 27-10, USU responded by going on a 13-2 run which was capped by a dunk by junior forward Stephen DuCharme.
The Aggie run was also aided by also playing tighter defense. NMSU struggled to get shots of due to double coverage of big-man Martin Iti. Nearing the end of the half the Aggies from the south penetrated the USU defense and extended their lead to 10 points going into the break with a halftime score of 35-25.
“Believe it or not, what we talked about at halftime was that we were only down by 10,” Morrill said. “Last time we were here we were down by 17 and came back and had a chance to win it. We never talked about that we weren’t going to be in the ball game. We thought that we’d find a way to be in the ball game. These guys did find a way to even make it a real lively game.”
NMSU started the second half with two easy baskets, including one by Hawkins. But New Mexico State would not have the opportunity to launch a repeat of the first half as USU went on a 17-5 run to take its first lead of the game at 47-46. During this run NMSU allowed 12 unanswered points including two consecutive 3-pointers by Carroll and a wide-open 3-point shot from the left wing by senior forward Chaz Spicer.
Carroll took a beating in the second half, enduring a knee to the stomach, leg and a butt in the stomach. Twice he took a few seconds to get up and limped momentarily before getting back into the game and scoring again.
“Those are things you don’t quite expect, to get hit like that.” Carroll said. “They were physical. It was tough for me to get open. We had some guys step and do some very good things.”
USU enjoyed its one-point lead only momentarily as a pair of successful free throws by NMSU’s Tyrone Nelson put the crimson Aggies up by two. From this point on the score gap was no greater than four points.
In the waning moments of the game, DuCharme drained two free throws to put the Aggies within two at 70-68. But a fowl on USU sent NMSU’s Ted Knauber to the line. He collected his two shots from the charity stripe and increased New Mexico State’s lead to 72-68.
Carroll drove down the court and popped in a basket in the paint to bring the Aggies within two points. But with 1.6 seconds remaining, NMSU had possession of the ball and USU still had a two point deficit. In a near hopeless situation, USU’s luck changed when Nelson threw the ball the length of the court and out of bounds, thus taking no time off the clock and giving possession to USU.
“We didn’t have time to foul in that situation,” Morrill said. “We thought about grabbing a guy out of bounds and fouling him and seeing if we can get a foul called. We just tried to deny anything. Then the ball went out of bounds anyway and we had a chance.”
Carroll threw the ball in to senior forward Chris Session and then ran to the outside wing where Session returned the ball to him. Carroll took a fade away 3-point jumper just before the buzzer sounded but the shot was to the right and the win went to New Mexico State.
“We had about a second and a half to go,” Carroll said. “We ran a play we run a lot and [I took] a fade away and shot it. I wish it went in.”
“They did a great job defending it and we didn’t get a really clean look,” Morrill said. “It was what we were trying to get, they just did a nice job defending it.”
Carroll finished the game with a game-high 26 points and pulled down six rebounds. He was joined in scoring by just three other Aggies, as only four USU players scored in the game.
DuCharme finished the game with 16 points and four rebounds. Spicer posted 13 points, seven rebounds and two steals. Senior forward Durrall Peterson tabbed 15 points and six assists.
Despite falling in the championship game of the WAC Tournament, Morrill said he is proud of what his team has accomplished this season.
“This has been a great team,” he said. “We’ve had some low moments and like I said yesterday, some coaches would say, ‘low moments? You had 23 wins.’ We had some tough times and they kind of hung in there and kept their attitude good. We had real high character guys. I couldn’t be more proud of them.
“We came down here and played a good tournament. You think of what we had: Hawaii, Nevada, the No. 10 team in the nation, and New Mexico on their home court. That’s a tough order right there.”
With the victory, New Mexico State will advance to the NCAA Tournament, courtesy of USU’s victory over No. 10 Nevada on Friday night. Nevada will also participate in the Big Dance.
“I think we did a nice job of helping the league get to by knocking off Nevada,” Morrill said. “Maybe New Mexico State might have beat them. New Mexico and Nevada are in and that’s the way I see it. Do I think we’ll be in the NCAA tournament? Boy that would be great.”
When asked what his thoughts about playing in the NIT were, Morrill said, “There’s 97 team playing and you’re one of them, you need to feel great. Yeah, you’d rather be in the NCAA tournament. I think it’s completely asinine when I hear about coaches turning NIT bids. Any coach who does that ought to be shot.”
The USU Aggies finished the season with a 23-10 record, which two wins over Nevada and two victories in the WAC Tournament.
-sethhawkins@cc.usu.edu