USU Men continue road trip against Seattle
After picking up a much-needed road victory — its second of the season — the USU men’s basketball team continues its four-game road trip with an intermission in Western Athletic Conference play.
USU (10-8) will face the Seattle University Redhawks (4-12) Thursday — a team USU defeated at home 78-53 earlier in the season — and tipoff is slated for 7 p.m.
“We’ve won two road games, so we doubled our total,” USU head coach Stew Morrill said. “That’s the good news. We’d sure like to find a way to keep getting some wins on the road. We’ve got another opportunity this week, so we’ll see how we do.”
Despite USU’s blowout victory at home earlier in the season, Morrill isn’t counting on a similar result.
“They had a really poor shooting night in Logan, and we really needed a win at that time and played hard and got a W,” he said. “They’re talent level is high. People might say, ‘Well, there record is not so great. How can you say that?’ Well, I’ve watched them on film. They’ve got transfers from Pac-12 schools and they are athletic. If they get it cooking on you, it’s tough.”
Seattle soundly defeated Eastern Washington 91-78 on Tuesday at home. Senior forward Aaron Broussard, who leads the Redhawks with 17 points per game, exploded for 34 points in the victory, and sophomore guard Sterling Carter chipped in 26 points.
“Seattle U is coming off a really good performance last night versus Eastern Washington,” he said. “They scored a couple points and had a couple guys go off.
“They’re playing quite a bit different than when we saw them last time. They’re pressing a lot more. They’ve changed their offense. It’ll be a similar situation press-wise to what we saw at Louisiana Tech — lots of presses on every opportunity they get.”
Seattle averages eight steals per game while forcing 16 turnovers per game.
Despite the road-game factor, having previously played Seattle will still give USU some benefit.
“That game was a while ago and it will take a little bit to remind our guys, but we can at least watch ourselves play against them and see what we did and didn’t do, and that will be somewhat helpful,” Morrill said.
The road victory against Louisiana Tech doesn’t guarantee USU will be successful on the road this week, but don’t count the Aggies out on week two of their road trip.
“We should know by now that we have limitations and we have to scratch and claw to be in any game,” Morrill said. “We’re 10-8. We’re not 4-16. I can think they can garner some good feelings about at least finding a way to make progress and get to .500 in league and get above .500 overall. Obviously, we’d like to be better than that, but I think they are learning how hard they have to play to be in a game.”
USU may have a different starting lineup against Seattle after starting the same lineup for eight consecutive games — Morrill had nine different starting lineups in the first 10 games of the season — because senior forward Morgan Grim aggravated his foot against Louisiana Tech.
“He’s obviously going to do whatever he can,” Morrill said. “The good news is it’s not a fracture, but there is obviously something going on in there. They’re not quite sure what’s causing it to swell up.”
Grim said he felt something wasn’t right in his foot while walking to the scorers’ table to check in, then trainers told Morrill that Grim would not be available the remainder of the game. USU’s post players found themselves in foul trouble, so Grim eventually checked back in and limped through the rest of the game.
– ty.d.hus@aggiemail.usu.edu